Sports in Society

The Role of Athletic Competition in the American Zeitgeist

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Sports. Athletics. Competition.

Ancient hieroglyphs depict athletes in various competition dating as far back as 15,000 years ago. Ancient Sumer, Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, and of course Rome all had various sporting competitions in their day. Some for the pure sport, some for entertainment, and some were used as a barbaric way of punishing slaves.

Within sporting competition lies an inherit primal need most humans possess, and that is to test yourself, test your body, and to see what you can achieve. Competition can be extremely healthy for the mind, body, and soul.

My aim with this article is to try and show why we shouldn’t jettison sports as a means of escape or enjoyment. Of course, should you choose to do so, then I am not one to begrudge you. I get it. I got tired of seeing knees being taken. I got tired of just wanting to watch a football game only to be slammed with propaganda the entire time. I’m not here to tell you that you should absolutely watch and enjoy sports. I’m merely here to tell you why I do, and why Badlands Media chooses to cover sports, and include them in our lineup.

You see, growing up I was always the kid interested in sports, my best being baseball and hockey—the latter of which I took pretty seriously and wound up on a pretty incredible journey with. For me personally, sports is so much more than entertainment on the screen. When I think of baseball, I am harkened back to fond memories of going to ball games with my dad, or having a catch with him in the yard—not prima donnas taking a knee. When I see hockey, I am taken back to traveling all over, playing tournament after tournament, and eventually winding up playing in the WHL in Alberta, Canada. You see, I refuse to let the corruption that is creeping into our world destroy familial bonds and memories I have built through certain sports, or sports moments. Why should I allow these people to take even more joy from me?

For two years I went without sports. From March 2020, until this past Spring. It was refreshing. It wasn’t the end of the world. However, at the same time, I missed watching baseball with my dad. I missed watching hockey with my brother. I missed watching those moments that happen that make your hair stand up regardless of which team you pull for.

I’m 40 years old. I’ve worked for professional teams, and I’ve watched a lot of sports in my life. I’m not naïve. I understand corruption is everywhere, and that plenty of scandals have rocked the sports world. I get it. I get it when you say “f**k sports!”, I get the resentment. I get the hate. I even express the same frustrations with sports that many of you do.

That said, I also truly believe that as we travel through the sometimes-rough waters of this Great Awakening that no stone will be left unturned. You can’t put up a fight to cleanse society of so much corruption without also cleaning up the sports world, and I want to remind y’all of some of the good sports have provided, and also remind you that during the nightmare that was the last two years, we also had lots of heroes within sports who did the right thing and don’t get any credit or fanfare for it. Sports will be an integral tool to healing society and even more so, they can be used to wake people up en masse.

For example, how many people decided against a vaccine because of Aaron Rodgers or Kyrie Irving? How many people realized Covid was bull when their favorite fantasy player was benched because of Covid while not showing any symptoms and then they lose their precious fantasy football matchup? More have been awakened because of these examples than you’d realize.

Sports can bring out the absolute best, and the absolute worst in people. Sports can provide the most incredible highs and the most devastating lows. Back in Spring of 2001, I was in my final year of Midget Eligibility. This was my last season of competitive hockey down here, and in the winter I knew I’d be heading up north to play in Canada. In a span of a month that spring, I learned how high the highs could be, and how low the lows can be.

I was a goaltender, and the other goaltender on my team that season was Ryan Sobiech. He was 17, good-looking kid, was already 6’4”, and had multiple scholarship offers on the table. We split starts, but looking back I have no reservation in saying that Ryan was better. That kid was destined for the big time. I mean, he had “it.” Athleticism for days and a mind for the game.

March 2nd, 2001 began like most others. I woke up, I had breakfast, and then I got a phone call. Ryan had been killed in a car accident on his way to school.

(As I always do when I speak of Ryan, I wanna remind everyone to wear your seatbelt; had Ryan been wearing his, he’d probably still be here.)

Ryan was the first close person to me I had ever lost in life, and it hit me hard. And as we were both goaltenders, we shared a competitive, yet healthy bond. Yeah, we each wanted to be the starter, but we also supported each other and pushed each other.

I handled the funeral well. We all wore our jerseys, and I gave the eulogy. It wasn’t until the first practice after his passing when I walked into the locker room and sat down next to his empty stall with his jersey hanging that it hit me: my wingman on the ice was gone. One of my best friends was gone.

It hurt.

We’ve all lost people. We all know that pain. However, as an 18-year-old kid who had never lost anyone before, seeing an empty stall where my buddy used to get dressed out right next to me absolutely gutted me. I didn’t know what to do other than to go play.

And play we did, right into the State Championships.

I made the decision after that first practice that I would bury my head and keep playing. With it being so late in the season, finding a suitable second goaltender was nearly impossible. We found one, but to be realistic he was only going to start if I got hurt. I remember going hard, game after game. That net was mine, and no one would take it from me. No one.

I had changed my number from my customary ‘29’ to Ryan’s ‘64’ after asking his mother’s permission. This tournament was tough. We were good, but not favored to medal. We found ourselves in the final four, with a chance to win the whole damn thing on the horizon. The internal pressure I put on myself to win a gold medal for Ryan was not healthy looking back, but it also fueled a huge healing moment for me and his family.

We lost in the semi-finals 1-0 in triple overtime and with it our chance to play for the gold. I played my ass off. We all did. We had simply run out of emotional and mental energy. And then something amazing happened:

I was in the locker room, and I make no qualms about the fact that I lost my composure as soon as we entered. I put that loss solely on me, broke my stick and threw my helmet against the wall, shattering it. I sat down at my stall and just let all the pain from the prior 3 months go. I was bawling. I felt that I had failed Ryan. Failed his family.

At this point, I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was Ryan’s mother. She made me stand up, and she hugged me and just let me cry. She then told me that I had done more to honor her son than I could even imagine, and that watching the team play the way we did, and seeing me out there and wearing her son’s number was a very deep source of healing for their entire family.

I wiped my tears away, apologized to her for not bringing home the gold, and she said, “You and this team have brought us peace. That is worth more than any medal.”

To this day, I can see her smile and feel her warmth emanating from those words.

The next day, we went out and won the Bronze Medal, and later that week, I presented that medal and my jersey to Ryan’s family.

In the span of a few weeks, I learned how sports can drop you on your ass emotionally, yet at the same time provide the healing that can only come from bonds that can never be fractured.

Why do I still watch sports and enjoy them? Because moments like this happen all the time in the sports world.

That said, before I get into some examples of how athletes and sports have served a greater good for humanity and society as a whole, I must first acknowledge how they have also been used as a tool of division and an outlet for propaganda, because these things certainly happen. Sports are clearly not immune to corruption.

We’ve seen plenty of instances of athletes bending the knee, as it were. Colin Kaepernick was used as a tool to create more division by leading the “take a knee” charge. Not to be outdone, the U.S Women’s Soccer team also went full woke in an attempt to indoctrinate young women across the country into supporting Communist values and agendas.

We’ve all witnessed Lebron James virtue signaling about human rights while being completely fine with accepting Chinese money. We’ve watched folks like Steve Kerr, Gregg Popovich, Serena Williams, Lewis Hamilton, and damn near half the NFL shove the BLM agenda down our throats when all we wanted to do was simply unwind and watch some athletic competition.

We’ve seen numerous cheating, doping, officiating and gambling scandals, and I admit, it’s tiring, it’s nauseating, and it has reached a point of over-saturation. That said, I truly believe that people are tired of it. Athletes are tired of it, and according to Michele Tafoya in a recent podcast, we have far more on our side in the sports world than we can imagine.

I’m here to tell you that despite those folks mentioned above and those like them, we have a multitude of athletes doing the right thing. Sports have and can serve a very important role in society, which is more than reason enough for you not to give up on your favorite sport because a couple bad apples tried to spoil the bunch.

Today, I am going to highlight one athlete who has stood up in his/her truth with conviction, and I’m going to highlight one event that helped to lift society out of a hole as I was lifted up before.

Kyrie Irving.

From his early days at Duke University spent spouting his opinions on Flat Earth to his current time with the Brooklyn Nets, Kyrie Irving has never been too far away from controversy. It can also be said that Kyrie has never once shied away from speaking his truth, and that can be respected, if nothing else.

During the Covid pandemic, Kyrie was quite adamant that he was not getting vaccinated. He was barred from playing any games in any arena that required a vaccine, and this included his home arena in Brooklyn. No one went to bat for him. Not his team. Not his owner. Not the NBA Player’s Association. Kyrie stood on that hill within that organization by himself, and in the process, he relayed the message to millions of his fans that it is acceptable to take a stand.

How many people do you think decided against the vaccine because of Kyrie?

He has done this again recently, having been suspended for sharing a link to a documentary that could be described as anti-semitic. He made no comment on it; he merely shared a link. Ladies and gentlemen, that isn’t just an attack on free speech, it is an attack on thought, and it is nothing more than [them] attempting to make an example out of Kyrie for having an opinion of his own.

[They] simply won’t stand for that.

Yes, Kyrie pushed out a forced, vague apology, but over the last two years, he has taken a huge stand against the powers that be, and in a league that is arguably the most controlled and corrupt sporting organization in America. For that, I take my hat off to him.

Moving along, I now want to turn my attention towards a sporting event that lifted America up out of the dark hole it was inhabiting at a contentious time:

The 1980 U.S Olympic Hockey Team defeating the Soviets in Lake Placid.

This was a tenuous time in American history, not unlike what we’re seeing now. There were gas shortages and inflation, unemployment was rampant, the Cold War was at a fever pitch and Iran was holding Americans hostage. American morale was in the toilet. There was nothing to look forward to, with the light at the end of the tunnel resembling an oncoming train.

Enter the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, NY, where a rag-tag bunch of college kids would go on to win a Gold Medal in a sport this country isn’t known for and in so doing, would reignite the emotional spark needed for Americans to lift themselves up and fight. After all, if these kids can beat the big bad Soviet Army (setting propaganda aside,) then why can’t we correct our course?

This team had no business beating the Russians, who had been together for nearly 15 years. They were men. Professionals, all made to serve in the Red Army, otherwise all of them would have found their way to the NHL in short order.

10 days before the games began, Herb Brooks scheduled a game against the Russians at Madison Square Garden, where Team USA was soundly drubbed to the tune of 10-3. But Brooks knew what he was doing. That game served to get rid of the nerves, and by the next time we met the Russians in the medal round, we were a completely different team than the one they had faced nearly two weeks prior. What happened next was unbelievable. Do you believe in miracles?

The 1980 U.S Hockey Team defeats Russia 4-3 on Feb, 22nd 1980.

This is a team that won by working together. By believing in each other. By believing in their coach.

They mirror the way we all feel about President Trump now. The tide in America began changing shortly after this team skated their way to a gold medal. Reagan was elected, the economy began to rebound and America began to find her heartbeat again, and no one will ever convince me that this event didn’t play some role in that.

America needed something to lean on, and sports provided the leaning post. Suffice to say, this was neither the first nor the last time sports has done this for America, or for people in general.

And it’s important that we remember that, and not let [them] take it from us.

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God bless all of you for your love and support.

In my next article, I will be covering Jesse Owens and the 2001 World Series.

You can catch myself and the masterful J.B White every Monday and Friday from Noon-2pm ET for Sports Talk! A sports show by conservatives, for conservatives, on Badlands Media.