Friday, February 23, 2007

What is a sport anyway?

A very controversial topic at my highschool was what constituted a sport worthy of earning a varsity letter. Although this is quite debatable I feel that showchoir is as much a sport as bowling or cheerleading or even football. At my school varsity letters could be earned in bowling, marching band, cheerleading, dance team and I tried to discern what exactly the school was defining as a sport.
Here is what I have come up with so far. I think a sport is something that involves physical activity and a certain level of competition. I understand that many things can be included under that very basic definition but Im okay with that. Is cheerleading a sport? Most definitely, they have competitions just like football and I can safely say that the work involved is very strenuous. I hurt more from a week of cheerleading tryouts then I did in a full season of soccer.
Is showchoir a sport? This is really what I am driving at. I truly believe that showchoir is a sport because it is very demanding physically and the entire season is devoted to bettering the group in preparation for competitions. If you think football training is hard, I welcome you to come to one of our "Andy Weeks" in the summer. An hour of "warmup" aerobic workout, hours of intense dancing, lifting, and singing is a light day. 10 hour a day rehearsals in blistering weather is not what I would call easy. Although I never earned a Varsity Letter for this "extracirruclar activity" I am assured that I worked just as hard as any "jock" in any other "sport" if not harder. PS. we all had to lift weights as part of our preparation for the season. WOO ROCK ON SHOW CHOIR!

1 comment:

Associate Professor of Education, Luther College said...

Great topic. Just the definition of "What is a sport?" is stimulating. Could "sports" also be an art? Should a creative, rhythmic, coordinated athlete (poetry in motion, perhaps) also be deserving of a fine arts letter? And, perhaps some would argue that something like golf, which isn't terribly demanding physically but requires terrific hand-eye coordination might not fall within your definition of sport either. So.....it would be interesting to have this discussion with a diverse group of artists and athletes.

Thanks for your ideas on this. I look forward to reading your blog in the future.

Dr. Langholz