You’d think that after playing sports for my entire life and watching ESPN religiously every day that I would know exactly what makes a sport, well, a sport.
But the more I think about it, the more I realize that this distinction is completely subjective. In my opinion, a sport should be able to keep your attention while you’re watching it and not bore you to death. So does that mean all women’s “sports” are only games? Or that baseball is not a sport?
Cup stacking. Indie car racing. Ping-pong. Are these sports?
Well, all gray areas between “games” and “sports” will be cleared up and all myths will be debunked with my foolproof explanation of what a sport truly requires.
1. Physical exertion
For any activity to be a sport, there has to be some kind of intense physical component. Anything that can be played from a couch or while munching on Doritos is not a legitimate sport.
So that eliminates professional gaming (sorry to all you Halo fanatics out there), cup stacking-which was recently renamed, ironically, “sport stacking”-and competitive eating as sports.
Don’t get me wrong; Takeru Kobayashi is a talented individual. Watching him stuff 50 hot dogs down his throat in 10 minutes is kind of like seeing a surgery on TV: Even though it’s pretty disgusting, you keep watching out of morbid curiosity.
Another “sport” that this rule eliminates is poker. I’m a big fan of the game; I really am. But to call poker a real sport is like calling Spam real food. It just isn’t! The same thing goes for chess. I admire the people who have the patience to play it, but it isn’t physical.
2. Objective scoring
In sports like soccer or football, the score is never up for debate. A touchdown, no matter how amazing or ugly it is, will always be six points. And a goal, no matter if it’s a bicycle kick or an accident, will always be worth one point. That will never change.
This rule comes into play with “sports” like figure skating, gymnastics and competitive cheerleading. The winner of all these activities is determined by the judges’ opinions. If a judge scores an athlete higher or lower based on politics, loving or hating a move or something as shallow as his or her outfit, then the notion of competition spirals down the drain.
There’s no denying that we like to know for certain whether someone won a contest. The base runner either beat the throw to the plate or he didn’t. So that means boxing, which some would consider an obvious sport, is out. Diving, out. Rodeo, out. Skiing, out. And even the X-Games, out.
3. Required “ball”
The last element that every sport needs is a ball or some essential object-a hockey puck, javelin or dart could all count. Think about it: America’s three top professional sports have “ball” right in the name.
This eliminates activities such as swimming (which is just “not drowning,” anyway), running and synchronized swimming as sports.
If there are two people or teams on a playing surface at the same time competing with a ball, particularly the same ball, it’s almost certainly a sport.
Even when you have distinct rules for what determines a sport, there are going to be slip-ups, like bowling, that find their way through the system as legitimate sports, but really aren’t.
You can call me conventional, but I think the term “sport” should be reserved for specific activities. Basketball, tennis, golf, football and many others that follow my rules, are sports. All others are mere activities.
Dan Hunninghake is a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences.
