Team Sports, Agency, and the Development of Character
This might be a multi-day topic, depending on the email.Ex-Denver Broncos wide receiver Nate Jackson wrote an article for Deadspin a few weeks ago titled How Playing In The NFL Ruined Me For Life On The Outside. I encourage you to read the full article, because behind the humor, it's very revealing, but here are a few excerpts:
When I am struggling in the “real world,” is it because I am conditioned for a different reality? Or because I actually have brain damage? Nobody knows, because frustration can read as dementia. It’s the world that drives us mad, not football! It’s the way people communicate: Vague. Non-committal. Via text. Email. Waiting for a response. Fake smiles and faker laughs. Superlatives and exclamation points and the making of plans that never come to fruition. Sorry for the delayed response, things are crazy over here. “Really?” I want to say. “How crazy?” Every conversation is a game of double-dutch and I cant seem to time it up.
Because in football, there is only one rope, and it’s tied around your neck. Everything is Clear and Direct. They look you right in the eyes and tell you where you stand. If you forget your assignment on a play for example, practice comes to a screeching halt. Everyone turns to you and watches your coach say something like: “If you cannot remember the plays, then we can’t put you in the game. And if we can’t put you in the game, then we can’t have you on this team!” Duly noted. You are evaluated at all times. Coached at all times.
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So how’s retirement? Aside from trying to get writing gigs and hanging out with my wife, I basically just wander around waiting for something to happen, something off-script, because it feels like I’m the only one without a copy.
If I hear a crash, I get excited. A scream. Yay! Glass breaks. Sirens ring out. Killer! Smoke fills the air. Tires screech. Someone yells fuck. A ball rolls out into the street. A crustpunk stalks a tech worker. A Lyft driver backs into a fire hydrant. These are the moments I live for. And when I think about it, I always have. I was a reckless child, always leaning forward, always banged up, stitches in my head, black eyes. I was perfect for football, but my participation came with a price. It rewarded my recklessness, made aggression a virtue, and disconnected me from the emotional reality of violence. Not only that, but it seems as if, even 10 years later, that my dials have been fixed.
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The longer that Eli 17.11 played team sports, the more something nagged at me. Everyone was talking about how team sports build character, but the kids who play team sports are developing obedience, not character. The more agency they show, the more they get yelled at. Coaches don't want kids with agency--they want scheme execution, and that is precisely defined, even in hockey.
Obedience without true agency is not character.
Plus, everyone also talks about how it teaches kids not to be selfish, playing on a team. When you're playing on a national level team, though, your family's life revolves around you. It has to. There is so much travel and so much outside coaching and so many workouts.
It's a situation where everyone you write the checks to says writing that check will help your kid develop character, but I started wondering if--all else aside--a kid might develop more character if they worked at a charity for fifteen hours a week and just played regular, local sports.
So when I saw this Nate Jackson article, it struck a chord, because he was saying life inside a team sport made it more difficult to live in the regular world, not less.
Then, in the comments section, there were several military veterans who said they couldn't adjust to the real world after being in the military, and what they described was almost identical to what Jackson described.
We have several readers, including some of my favorites, who were in the military for long periods, and I'm hoping they weigh in on this.
So we have two topics here for discussion here, although they're closely related. Are team sports actually helping kids develop character, and does being in a highly regimented system (college/pro sports, the military) reduce one's ability to live in the outside world?
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