The most important thing men can learn from sports is sportsmanlike behaviour.
Objectively, men nowadays have an unhealthy rivalry when it comes to sports.
They have lost it. They don’t follow the bro code. Men can’t straighten a brother’s collar without broadcasting it to the world. They backbite and gossip worse than some hood women in a market place salon gossiping a girl in the hood who just won herself an old sugar Daddy on some dating site known only to a few pros and immigrated to Scandnavia. Some dudes out here won’t hesitate to pull a man down. Like we have so many Fubara’s in our midst who won’t hesitate to pull what a Fubara did to Wike.
A friend narrated to me how his marriage was torn apart by someone he considers his best friend. Like the best friend provided the wife with all the ammunition she needed to leave him. For ammunition replace with justification. When confronted with the chats with the wife, the man didn’t know what to do or say. To date, not sure what the gossiper wanted to achieve with the wife or what points he wanted to score, the man told me. This is fairly common. We all have a friend we cut off because he or she was the CCTV relaying every detail, including when you yawned or broke wind to unnecessary contacts.
We see these men in offices. Always at the water dispenser with the fellow gossip staff( women used to be excused) and they carry around office snide talks like they are paid to. Is it just me or did men get objectively worse at gosipping? Zero honour. We see these men in politics. Zero principles. In our families we have that brother or cousin who is the BBC for all that is good and bad in the family. Men who discuss family business to enemies. Animals who can say anything to your woman to have her. They can stab you in the back to take your job. Will celebrate when you fall. Some admire and covet girlfriends and exes and distant friends, feeding them nonsensical information, for whatever gratification. Don’t get me started by these men who can call their mother and be on phone for two hours not talking about anything constructive but gossiping siblings and cousins.
In the books, I have talked about why it helps to be a real man who respects his friends and the power of being a man’s man.
I don’t know if it’s the food we’re eating or if it’s global warming. Either way, it must go.
As a man you have no business with your friend’s wife. The only time you can contact her is when the man is involved in a fatal accident, or he has been arrested (and maybe you can’t afford the bail or he is going in for a long time). The other rare opportunity is when there is a business or job opportunity and you have to go through the husband.
Play fair.
Keep some damn secrets and some things to yourselves. Keep a safe distance between yourself and the women in your life, not yapping everything to them like you are a parrot high on cannabis or something. Some things are for male lockerrooms, strictly. Stop going after people’s wives. Have some shame and standards. It doesn’t matter if they (wives) made the first move.
Have better hobbies. Read a book please. It is frustrating to be empty-headed. With a hobby, books, a job, you are likely to spend more time with men. Saves you a lot.
Roger Federer penned the best tribute to Rafael Nadal on his retirement. Whereas such tributes could be a product of PR, the admiration, honesty and the self-deprecating humour could not be mistaken.
Tennis is an insanely intense and competitive sport with very few greats ruling the roosts at any given and over a long period of time. And in our time, Nadal and Federer have been the best.
In a world of binaries, people always pick sides, pitching opponents against the other, sometimes to puerile and childish levels.
But here was a competitor, five years older, admiring his younger contemporary, showering him with platitudes and genuine admiration. Like there is more to sports than the money, the competition and the glory.
Over the weekend, I woke up to follow the ill-advised Tyson fight with the kid Jake Paul. I am a big Tyson fan for both his inside and outside the rings antics. I was expecting a blood fight, but when I saw him horsing around the ring aimlessly and Paul just entertaining him, I was furious for having wasted my precious sleep. But at the end, Paul took a bow. Tyson did as well. Showing honour, and respect from Paul, and erasing all the pre-fight hubris and nonsense, and any feeling of disappointment at the underwhelming fight, was quickly forgotten by true sportsmen, understanding it was a pointless fight, money-grab, but in the end, Tyson showed us that you can last 8 rounds, and through some 70 punches, and for Paul, you could dream up of anything and achieve, if you put your heart into it.
These two events got me thinking.
Before the big money, sportsmen used to be sportsmanlike and the world always loathed any man who behaved badly on the pitch or court.
I am old enough to remember when Man U fans were honourable and Arsenal fans were humble. Like you could admire a player or two of the opposing team or their coach. You could say nice things about a competitor. There was banter but it never degenerated into diminishing the impact of players in the opposing side. Like winning trophies was good, but some of the greatest players never won the best trophies and soke of the most forgettable ones have the medals. I mean the Brazillian Ronaldo (one of the greatest strikers of all time doesn’t have a Champions League). Mcdonald Mariga has one. Donald Trump won the presidency at his first attempt. Atiku and Raila Odinga hasn’t won in all their attempts. Such is life.
How do you take the L. With grace or with a bad attitude.
There is a lot that as men you should learn from sports. That is for those who want to learn.
I view men who are indifferent to sports suspiciously. Especially those totally disinterested. It is a usually a sign of poor upbringing, likelihood of having some unmanly behaviour, and will easily betray you as they don’t know the rules of any game e.g. you don’t beat a man when he is down.
Sports teaches us fairness, or the cruelty of unfairness. Sports teaches us karma or the absence of it. Sports teaches ambition. Redemption. Determination. Skills. Tactics. Tradition. Values. Patience. Not to give up. The sudden turn of fortunes. That it is the final whistle that counts. Who can forget Liverpool’s dramatic comeback in the 2005 Champions League. The Brazillian Ronaldo redeeming himself in the 2002 World Cup after the 1998 humiliation in France?
All the male sports(team sports); football, basketball, boxing, wrestling, athletics(only endurance, otherwise it is a meaningless individualistic sport), etc, have ingrained lessons in them beyond their entertainment value.
Learn.
Stephanie Sewuese Shaakaa.
University of Agriculture
Makurdi
Benue state
