Redefining what it means to be a sport
Tom Brady, LeBron James, Derek Jeter. Almost everyone across America knows who these people are, and what sports they play. That’s because they play the “real” sports: football, basketball, and baseball.
However, there are plenty of other less popular sports that don’t receive the widespread recognition and credit that they should. Some people claim that they are not “real”, or that they are somehow disqualified from being sports. So here’s my line in the sand: a sport is an activity that requires practice, dedication, and certain level of athletic talent that not everyone possesses.
For instance, take golf. Golf is one of the sports that I hear people make jokes about, but the difficulty of the sport has always been underrated. I’ve heard people refer to it as a “leisure activity”. True, there is not as much physical activity involved in golf as, say, football, but it still requires power, control, and precision to perform well. People wouldn’t think that hitting a small ball with a club hundreds of feet toward a tiny target is hard, but it really is. A golfer needs strong power and perfect form to be able to drive the ball with accuracy, not to mention the ability to account for every slight bump and change in the grass that could affect the ball. With golf, there’s also an additional emotional and mental aspect to take into consideration; one of the hardest parts about golf is having to control any frustration. Because it is a largely technical sport, frustration makes a player worse, as opposed to a sport like football where a frustrated player can take out their frustrations on the opposing team. Most people who make fun of golf don’t realize the complicated strategy and intense mental focus that it requires.
Tennis is another sport that has a certain stigma attached to it. People say it is easy, or for older people in country clubs. However, tennis is neither easy nor an “old man’s sport.” It takes quick movements, coordination, power, accuracy, and technique to play well. These are all incredibly hard skills to master. Others knock tennis for being boring, but how entertaining a sport may be is completely irrelevant to whether or not it is a “real” sport.
In the world of sports, those that are less popular are made fun of because not many people know about them or understand how to play them, regardless of how difficult these sports actually are. Some people don’t recognize these sports as “real” for whatever reason. However, these are real sports that are hard to play and require ability that not everyone has. More people need to recognize that.