Oklahoma’s Sports Obsession
Oklahoma State University is still reeling from the recent defeat in the bedlam basketball game against OU.
Monday night, I was frequently bombarded, as I ran my nightly errands, with people shouting, grunting and chanting at the TV.
I couldn’t escape it when I walked into a local campus store or when I was in the anti-sports zone of my apartment. I could still hear my roommate getting excited over some guy throwing a ball through a hoop.
I don’t particularly enjoy sporting events. And Oklahomans are not alone in appreciating physical competition. But there is something unique about what sports Oklahomans like.
One of my roommates is from New York and is fascinated with hockey. He can’t understand why Oklahomans get so crazed over sports like football, especially when there are no professional teams here.
I have to agree with him. Oklahomans place a great deal of undeserved importance on football. I would say they place a lot of undeserved importance on all sports, but, again, I hate sports.
But football stands out as the king of sports in this state. Why does Oklahoma care so much about sports?
I am going to conjecture that it has something to do with the college teams. Oklahoma may not have a professional football team, but they do have the next best thing. It’s debatable whether even these teams deserve the attention, but they get it anyway.
Personally, my biggest concern is with youth and high school sports.
In youth sports, all the parents seem to care about is winning.
For children, it’s supposed to be about having fun and building team dynamics.
The thing I see them learning is that if they don’t win, their parents live more and more vicariously through them or their parents will yell at other parents, coaches or referees.
Not exactly the best example of good sportsmanship.
Then there are high school sports. High school is about preparing people for the real world, college and being good citizens. No where is it supposed to focus on preparing people to be good athletic supporters.
With that said, I don’t understand why Oklahoma high schools, especially ones with failing athletic programs, will devote so much money to sports programs when they should be focusing on their failing academic policies.