Good Sport Or Bad Sport, Follow The Rules If You Play The Game

via youtube

One thing learned from the beginning? If I play sports I’m going to get dirty. Not everyone got the message along the way.

A new kid with a new glove and ball came to play. Another kid rubbed dirt on the ball and spit in the pocket of the mitt.

The new kid looked like he might cry he was so upset, but he stuck around and got into the game. He knew what to do after that when someone else showed up with a new ball and glove.

It was so easy to figure out when you’re young: play and be a good sport, or go home.

Another kid got boxing gloves for Christmas one year. Once the weather cleared up he decided to have a boxing match in his backyard. It was held on top of his dad’s homemade pick up truck cover.

The rules were simple: if you fell off the platform you lost. It was hard being a good sport up there.

After one kid ruled the roost three rounds in a row the match was over. No one wanted to get up there and get knocked off. Six little boys lost out when the boxing gloves went back in the house.

People who grow up playing sports have an approach to life that reflects their experience:

Show up on time.

Bring the right gear.

Play hard, help others, make it a fun event. Be a good sport.

Kids who stuck with sports took road trips to other schools and stadiums and arenas.

They got on the bus headed out of town with the uncertainty of the outcome. Win or lose? Play as hard as you can for as long as you can. Get on the bus and leave.

The rules were always the same: Be A Good Sport. Represent you school, your team, your family.

If you had a big brother? Work to be as good as he was. Got a little brother? Show them how to raise the bar of expectations. Sisters older or younger? Same thing.

Play the game like you’ve done before. Make new mistakes trying new things along with fewer mistakes doing routine things.

Do it right and do yourself proud, win or lose. Do it wrong and act like it’s right? What’s the word, or words, for that? One is cheating, the other is lying about cheating.

What do you do when you find a lying cheater on your team?

Fast forward a few decades and check the landscape for performing enhancing drugs, PED, blood doping, human growth hormones. Sophisticated testing revealed the dark side of champions like Lance Armstrong, Barry Bonds, and the stars of the Steroid Era.

Everyone grows up, even Mike Tyson.

via sportsbible