Worthy GOALS

A lopsided emphasis on victory misses the essential values of sports

He’s not just talking baseball. These days, if you’re feeling that the true colors of sports have begun to fade, look no further than manager Joe Torre. With his trademark humility and honesty, the former New York Yankee’s manager has a way of bringing us back to the true meaning and value of the games. Any game.

Taking over the helm of his new team in Los Angeles as more than 190 members of the press corps gathered around him in center field, he spoke out on the value of individuals (“Players are not commodities”), unity (“We’re all going to be wearing the same uniform”), solidarity (We’re all going to pull in the same direction”), and dedication (“I do the best I can, and that’s all I ask of my players”).

These are turbulent times in the wide world of sports, thanks to a variety of doping and cheating scandals, and Torre’s words are well met. How refreshing it would be to focus for a moment on the more worthy goals of sports, setting aside the profit motive for the people themselves.

Take, for example, the great potential of sporting events to bring together older and younger players from different nations and cultures, who speak foreign languages and embody a variety of talents, personalities and degrees of maturity. Helping them become one entity—one family, so to speak—and moving toward a common goal is one of sports’ highest aspirations.

Maria Terrazzino, a physical education instructor in Luxembourg, recently shared her experience in a multiethnic town, where primary school students came from Asia, Latin America, and Eastern and Western Europe.

“In the face of this cultural and linguistic mix, teachers have developed an educational model based on teaching fundamental values, such as respect for others, tolerance of all and an open attitude toward diversity. The primary goal of our teaching is not to impart knowledge or facts, but rather to teach an inclusive approach to life,” said Terrazzino.

“Sports are part of this educational framework,” she continued, “a valid means to highlight the values of each person. My way of approaching physical education is, above all, to try to draw out the best from every student: to focus on the person and not on winning, no matter what the cost; to learn to accept defeat as an inevitable part of life; to give students ever bigger challenges so that they experience sports much like (they would) life.”

“While encouraging the competitive spirit in each student,” she added, “I try to provide them the chance to give of themselves completely, without stooping to animal-like behavior, where winning becomes the only acceptable goal.”

The media, too, often overemphasizes victory and misses the real story behind sports. Sergio Durante, a sports journalist from Argentina, described the goal of his publication, Futbol Argentino, to counteract this trend. “We wanted to reflect on the positive aspects, not to consider the players as goods to be traded, but as human beings who feel, (who) enjoy and suffer,” he said.

Durante was inspired by the words of Focolare founder Chiara Lubich in her message to media professionals in 2000. “As a mother, enlightened by love, sees much more, so media professionals can learn … to better understand people and situations; to provide truthful, detailed and complete reporting, where the negative aspects of people and situations are not hidden, but where the positive is highlighted,” she wrote. “This is how love is: fully aware of reality, but knowledgeable on how to transform it so that the good stands out.”

Durante continued, “During interviews, we try to go beyond simply presenting the soccer player ... to show a more personal side.” Once a star player humbly confided to him, “I am someone who listens a lot ... My grandfather tells me that ‘it is not by chance that we have two ears and just one mouth.’ We should say half as much as what we hear.” His humility and respect for others offered useful lessons for other players.

Sports mirror society in general, and these lessons in sports have meaningful implications in wider social arenas: family and community relationships; professional endeavors such as healthcare, education, financial and other business enterprises; developing a general work ethic; and even peace building and conflict resolution.

In fact, the United Nations has established an Office of Sports for Development and Peace that fosters dialogue among nations and cultures by supporting sports events. The Vatican has also set up an Office for Church and Sports to further the development of healthy and responsible interactions. There are valuable lessons to be learned from sports, and these institutions are intent on promoting them.

Archbishop Celestino Migliore, Vatican representative to the United Nations, highlighted the contributions sports can make in his presentation to the U.N. General Assembly in November. “Through sports, a person develops one’s creativity and talent, overcomes personal challenges, acquires a sense of belonging and solidarity, learns discipline and a sense of sacrifice. These values redound to the benefit of the greater community and help one to understand the value of the common good over personal glory.”

The Archbishop then recalled the Olympic Creed: “The most important thing in the Olympic games is not to win, but to take part; just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle. The important thing is not to have conquered, but to have fought well.”

Emilie Christy

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Set fraternity in MOTION

400 sports people from 38 nations worldwide took part in the 2008 Sportmeet Congress entitled: Sport InCredible – Set Fraternity in Motion, held at Castel Gandolfo, Rome, March 28-30. Excerpts from the talk of Paolo Crepaz, Sportmeet Coordinator.

Fraternity, if placed at the basis of sports, especially Olympic sports, can also be a genuine resource for the construction of peace. Due to its universal nature, sports can be seen in the international arena as a means of fraternity and peace. However, nobody is under the illusion that sports bring peace by themselves. The symbolic value in favor of peace is not born spontaneously out of sports. Only when sportspeople themselves undertake to promote the theme of peace during competitions will they be able to bear witness throughout the event of how one can be a builder of peace. Only then will they be credible. If lived out in fraternity, quoting John Paul II, “sports can give a significant and fruitful contribution to peaceful co-existence of all peoples, beyond and above any discrimination on the grounds of race, language and nationality.”

The example of the Iraqi soccer team, made up of three ethnic groups, who embraced one another as they celebrated the victory in the Asian Cup, is unforgettable. This victory shows that fraternity in sports promotes the integration of every form of marginalization, modulates the peaceful intertwining among diversities, where the desire to find one’s roots becomes a basis for real dialogue, the only effective cure for racism to the present. This social awareness of sports needs witnesses in order to be credible and fruitful: in sports, athletes, trainers, managers and parents are all stakeholders. And if sports were practiced as an opportunity to elevate the dignity of the human person, even in a competitive way, it can become a bond of fraternity and friendship for all those attending the events.

In sports, victory and defeat are daily obligatory occurrences. Lived out fraternity can overcome a culture of defeat with a new culture of victory—to know how to lose in order to know how to win. The thought of Chiara Lubich ventures further still: “Only out of giving, out of love, can the inner and most transparent joy spring forth: for the winners (if they have fought and won for love) and for the losers (if they have also fought and lost for love). Here sports become genuine, and are elevated to their social dignity.”

It is upon these premises that we can tackle—and hope to win—important battles like the one against doping or any other form of cheating in sport. There are numerous episodes that support us in this culture of losing. Just to cite one from the world of cycling, that of Marco Pinotti who, during the Giro d’Italia (Tour of Italy), realizing that he had won the pink jersey of race leadership, allowed the success of that stage of the race to go to his companion.

As far as the aims of sports are concerned, fraternity endows them with the necessary humility, by setting a goal which does not lie within itself. A sports formed by fraternity has as its goal to contribute effectively, alongside reality, to the whole and harmonious growth of the human being, the fulfillment of humanity’s destiny, and the consolidation of the unity of the human family. John Paul II’s words well illustrate the goals of sports in the light of fraternity: “May sport respond to the needs of our time without degenerating: sports that protect the weak and do not marginalize anyone, freeing youth from the risks of apathy and indifference, and giving rise to a healthy competitive spirit; sport which are an emancipating factor for poorer countries and of help in wiping out intolerance and constructing a more fraternal and united world; sports which can contribute to the love of life, which can educate to sacrifice, respect and responsibility, promoting the full value of every human person.”

Paolo Crepaz

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A True Gold Medal in SPORTS

An interview with Joey Mojica, one of the national delegates to the International Sportmeet Congress in Rome, Italy, last March 28-30, 2008. Currently the Assistant Principal of St. Gregory’s Academy in Cavite, he is also a high school basketball coach, and an overall Sports Coordinator for parochial schools in the Diocese of Imus, Cavite.

What is the novelty lived and proposed by the Sport-meet Congress in Rome, Italy?

Today we must admit that sports, especially in competition and performance, is threatened by an exasperatingly competitive spirit, by doping, violence, racism and by marketing. Another factor is the lack of communion among people which makes inter-personal, social and political relationships difficult. It is for these reasons that the congress proposed as its theme to Set Fraternity in Motion.

This project calls for sportsmen to build up fraternity, as it sees everyone as a protagonist, with the conviction that each one has an irreplaceable role to play in building universal brotherhood. By doing so, everyone becomes involved in a dynamics of dialogue, of reciprocal love, and together, they create conditions so that each one can understand his or her own irreplaceable role, as in a mosaic. The congress proposes to use fraternity:

a. as a method: fraternity is about inter-personal relationships; at the level of various sports organizations, between local and international institutions, between various educational establishments and sports bodies, among sports realities, the financial world and the media. Fraternity will help us understand that a game won through cheating or tricks has not really been won at all. Clean sports are promoted. We can also rediscover the educational value of competition as an offer of “equal opportunity,” that is, everyone has the opportunity to compete without annulling the educational and promotional factors in competition.

b. as content: fraternity is a beacon reminding all involved to be constructive and to show respect for those values that sports promote. Fraternity can also encourage a more equal distribution of financial resources; promote integration for every form of marginalization and modulate peaceful intertwining among diversities. For example, the Sportmeet has helped in the construction of soccer fields and sports facilities in countries in need of financial assistance, as in the building of a basketball court in Tagaytay. Then, fraternity lived out can overcome a culture of defeat with a new culture of victory—to know how to lose in order to know how to win. Fraternity can pave the way towards integrated health, a sense of being at ease with oneself, with others, with the environment, in line with a wider-ranging social health. It can also help strike a qualitative and quantitative balance in media coverage of competitive, amateur and educational sports. If politicians and sports associations are also inspired by fraternity, they will universally foster the right to play and to engage in sports, to guarantee that the various issues pertaining to laws and financial resources are addressed as effectively as possible.

c. as a goal: sports informed by fraternity has its goal to contribute effectively to the whole and harmonious growth of the human being, and the realization of humanity’s destiny—to consolidate the unity of the human family.

Are they applicable to the Philippine sports, especially where you are working?

Yes, very much so, since we share the same problems in sports. Fraternity in motion is a timely proposal. We can deal with our own local sports problems the way the project proposes. All we need, I think, is the commitment of our sports officials to adhere to this proposal and give sports a new face. Actually, in a way, we are also applying this concept to our school sports activities. Students/players are now motivated not simply to win medals but instead, to win more friends. We, as organizers, have started to teach our students to excel in their field of sports, observe fair play all the time and make winning a gold medal take second place to winning new friends. We are only in our early years of implementation but we can already see positive changes in their attitude towards sports.

What was your previous outlook on sports and was it encouraged, or even changed, by this meeting?

I thought there was no way to bring back the true spirit of sports (camaraderie, unity, excellence and discipline) because of the many scandals reported in sports like doping, violence, game fixing and technological doping, just to name a few. I never thought that there were people or groups of people who are still working very hard to restore credibility in sports. The effort is worldwide, so I am now more encouraged to continue what we are doing on our local level, because I think we will be able to contribute to this noble mission even in our own small way.

What struck you most about that meeting?

I am very optimistic that fraternity in motion will really change the face of sports because it’s definitely a winning proposal. Also, I was struck by the tremendous effort put in by the Focolare Movement through Sportmeet, and by the different sport organizations and the many international champion athletes to restore credibility in sports today. Through this, I’ve been greatly encouraged to give my share to this global effort.

This is the seed being planted now, to be nurtured in the next few years until it bears fruit and will be harvested by the next generation of sportsmen and society in general.

New City

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