Sports in World History

David G. McComb

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2004
• Print ISBN: 9780415318112
• eBook ISBN: 9781134368518
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

This lively and clear survey provides a wide-ranging overview of the history of modern sports, covering such topics as:

• why human beings are athletes
• how the major modern sports came about and how they spread throughout the world with the help of enthusiastic individuals, sports organizations, the YMCA and the Olympic movement
• discussions of some of the most popular of the 300 modern world sports including: soccer, basketball, baseball, cricket, table tennis, tennis, Formula One racing, golf, swimming, skiing, volleyball, track and field, boxing, judo and cycling
• the history of both western and non-western sports in depth, as well as the increasing globalization of sports today
• the challenges facing the world of sports today, such as commercialization and the use of performance-enhancing drugs.

Sports historians and cultural studies students will all find this book gives a fascinating and invaluable insight into the world of sport through history.

Chapter 1

Introduction

It took a while for scholars in the twentieth century to recognize the significance of sports. Philosophers, sociologists, anthropologists, and physical educators preceded historians into the sports field, but enthusiasts established the North American Society for Sport History complete with a journal in 1973. In 30 years the small academic group has grown from 163 members to 380. Scattered through colleges and universities in North America, Europe, and Australia now are courses about sports, and although sports history is still a subtopic it is accepted in course curriculums and as a subject for serious research. It is no longer viewed as a boondoggle for instructors who wish to deduct the cost of stadium tickets from their income tax.

What is sport?

Strangely enough, there has been a problem about defining the word “sport.” Everyone knows what it means, and yet there is confusion. For instance, are fishing, hunting, skiing, or hiking sports? Most would agree that these activities are a kind of recreation, and a sort of sport. What happens, however, when there is a sponsored contest to catch the largest bass, or to find out who can ski over a set of mountain moguls with the fastest time? Most would agree that these activities are still sports, but that there is a difference in the intensity or seriousness of the physical effort involved. In explanation, physical educators have suggested a continuum for sports with recreation, or play, at one end of the line and athletics at the other.

Recreation is mainly for fun, or exercise, or relaxation—such as a game of noontime basketball at a local athletic club. At the other end of the continuum with athletics there is a high degree of training, investment, and coaching, along with spectators, rules, publicity, and institutional control such as with a varsity basketball game at a university. The amount of sheer fun diminishes, and the amount of serious work increases as you move from recreation to athletics. But, all along the line there is a combination of physical prowess, rules, and competition—the main ingredients of sports. It is less so with recreation, more so with athletics. In this book I emphasize the history of athletics rather than recreation, and thus, incidentally, leave out recreational games such as chess, or bridge because they lack any significant degree of physical effort. Also, in most cases when I use the words “sports,” or “contests,” and sometimes “games” as in the instance of Olympic Games they are used as synonyms for “athletics.”

The problem of periodization

Another special problem for sports historians beyond uncovering when and why and where sports developed in the past has been the construction of some sort of framework, or theory, to analyze and compare sports at different times and places. Scholars working with world history probably have struggled with this problem more than others. Generally, for teaching purposes world historians have adopted the division of time used by those teaching Western Civilization—ancient, medieval, and modern with the modern period beginning at 1500 CE. Still, there is much debate about periodization, particularly among world systems advocates who select the thirteenth, sixteenth, or eighteenth centuries as the most important era for trade and commerce. In contrast, for the development and spread of modern sports the nineteenth and twentieth centuries are the most important.

This is the time period when modern sports evolved and achieved a global distribution through the purposeful action of soldiers, imperial administrators, Christian missionaries, sports organizations, devotees, and businessmen. Traditional sports, those played by indigenous peoples, for the most part, rarely developed a global span. The sports that became global were those carried by the Europeans and Americans who reached into the world as a part of their historical evolution, communication, and influence. Thus, recent sports history fits roughly into the structure of modernization theory.

Modernization theory

This idea argues that as a result of the industrial and scientific revolutions, urbanization, and the growth of capitalism the Western European nations and the United States developed into wealthy modern states that emphasized rationality, standardization, uniformity, order, material progress, bureaucratic government, and corporate control. The resulting increase in leisure and income for people in such a circumstance made possible the commercialization and professional development of spectator sports as pastimes. Modern states thus escaped the static, tradition bound, economically poor, ritualistic, hierarchical conditions of the pre-modern world.

Critics of modernization theory have pointed out its Western bias, the impersonal driving forces, the lack of power to predict non-Western developments, and an absence of consideration for traditional values or internal motivations. Also, critics have been impelled by a fear that modernization means cultural imperialism and globalization which leads, in turn, to a homogenized world culture. In regard to world sports there is some truth in this. Common rules for soccer and basketball, for example, are used world wide, and the conventions for the sports came from the West. Still the fear of homogenization or Eurocentrism does not decrease the power of the theory.

Although not well developed and somewhat misused, as historian Peter Stearns has pointed out, modernization theory serves as a useful tool for understanding the relationships of major forces in history such as the industrial revolution. Modernization theory, indeed, has been helpful in world comparative studies, business history, and sports history. Allen Guttmann, an American Studies professor at Amherst College, used it to explicate the differences between traditional and modern sport. For Guttmann the modern period really was different, and most sports historians agree with him. Time, however, does not rest and at the present there is speculation that sports may have entered into a postmodern period.

Postmodernism

Starting in the 1960s architects, artists, and actors broke through the boundaries of modernism. They mixed styles, challenged orthodoxy, and abandoned accepted rules of conduct or taste. For example, architect Philip Johnson playfully placed a Chippendale-like pediment atop the AT&T Building completed in New York in 1984. Startled critics said it made the skyscraper look like a grandfather clock rather than a straight-lined, rectangular modern office building. Another example, Barnett Newman’s radical, welded, rusted steel sculpture, The Broken Obelisk, symbolic of the interrupted life of Martin Luther King, Jr, became a part of the Rothko Chapel in Houston, Texas in 1971. It was recognized as a great piece of art, but it was not based upon the realism of nature. Theme parks, such as those provided by the Disney Corporation replaced reality with amusing simulations. As a part of the opening act of the 2003 MTV awards show pop star Madonna shocked the audience by passionately kissing her two fellow female singers, Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera. This act crossed a boundary involving relationships between sexes and caused a ripple of comments.

In sports too there occurred a breaking of boundaries. For example, in 1965 Judge Roy Hofheinz opened the Astrodome, the first air-conditioned sports stadium large enough to enclose a baseball field. Critics and players both hated and praised it, and the Astrodome began a trend toward the construction of large enclosed athletic fields, something never done before. Amateur rules of competition broke down under the weight of the Cold War, and television with an emphasis upon entertainment blurred and changed sports rules. Television executives forced the timing of athletic contests such as those of golf, American football, and tennis to meet a broadcast format. Extreme sports, those outside the normal limits such as skateboarding and surfing competition, appeared in the 1990s. After lamenting the decline of “first-class cricket” forced by the needs of television, Australian historians Bob Stewart and Aaron Smith concluded, “Spectacular, entertaining, novel, and time-compressed contests are the defining characteristics of postmodern sport.”

Neither modernism, nor postmodernism, however, constitutes an accepted monolithic theory. Nonetheless, it seems that the characteristics of sports at the current moment are somewhat different than those of modern sports delimited by Allen Guttmann. More time, of course, will be needed for historians with their 20–20 hindsight to clarify these changes and suppositions. Analysis based upon modernization theory and postmodern speculations, however, illuminates the place of sports in human society.

Sports and culture

Sporting activities are a cultural phenomenon and thus a part of the larger society of which they are a part. It is a common cliché that sports reveal the values of a society as illustrated by the often quoted declaration of American intellectual Jacques Barzun in 1954, “Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball, the rules and realities of the game—and do it by watching first some high school or small town teams.”

Sports are an expression, or a statement, by a society about its interests, history, and character. Economics, politics, technology, religion, social issues such as gender or race, geography, and ethics can be observed in the rules and realities of sports. Shifts in these conditions influence sporting activities. Baseball, for example, is no longer the great American pastime. As sports sociologist D. Stanley Eitzen observed about America, “Baseball, then, represents what we were—an inner-directed, rural, individualistic society. It continues to be popular because of our longing for the peaceful past. Football, on the other hand, is popular now because it symbolizes what we now are—an other-directed, urban-technical, corporate-bureaucratic society.” Sports, consequently, are similar to other cultural expressions such as sculpture, painting, music, dance, theater, motion pictures, and literature. As society moves into a postmodern era, then sports too will become a part of the drift, and, at times, become a cultural leader. That is to be expected.

Sports as art

It is helpful to think of sports as an art form—as a performing art. Sports share with other cultural expressions an appeal to the emotions, aesthetics, drama, entertainment, and inspiration. The athlete can be considered an artist with a certain amount of self-expression and spontaneity. The athlete must play within rules, of course, but so must a musician or actor. Compared to other arts the sports venues are different, an athlete’s use of prohibited drugs may be a factor, and the outcome of a sporting event is always uncertain. An unsure outcome is not the case with plays or musical compositions where the musician or actor must follow what is written. The athlete may be closer to a jazz player or a writer where the opportunity to improvise is greater. Sports constitute a different sort of art form to be sure, but an art form nonetheless.

As a cultural expression, like painting or music or theater, sports might be considered unnecessary for human existence. For instance, although sports can inflame the emotions sporting events do not cause wars. They do not end wars, nor is there any good evidence that sporting comradeship will prevent wars. After all, there have been two world wars, a cold war, and numerous regional conflicts during the era of the modern Olympic Games. Sports, moreover, do not drive the economies of the world, nor determine foreign policy. In the grand expanse of the cosmos there is no indication that the result of a football game really means anything at all. Does God care which side wins? Are the Chicago Cubs and Boston Red Sox baseball teams really cursed? Who can tell?

As with other cultural programs in the schools there is no quantifiable evidence that sports are necessary for students. There is much anecdotal testimony, however, of the usefulness of the arts, including sports, for creating multidimensional, or well-rounded, lively individuals. People in all times and places have invented cultural institutions because they enrich the quality of life. Athletic events for both spectators and participants prompt conversations that cut through all divisions of society, and sports metaphors sprinkle the language—“a level playing field,” “a sticky wicket,” “on target,” “throw in the towel.” As sociologist Garry J. Smith commented, “Favorite teams, favorite players and a knowledge of sports lore all provide grist for conversation.”

Physical contests, moreover, are probably as old as humankind. Anthropologist Robert R. Sands looks upon sport as a “cultural universal,” a human constant that invites cross-cultural comparisons and provides a “blueprint of those important and valued behaviors that are the foundation of the larger culture in which sport is embedded.” Like other cultural representations sports are an art form that help to measure what it means to be a human being.

The organization of the book

In Chapter 2 I take a look at the basic motives, or reasons, involved in the creation of sports. I use mixed examples but many from pre-modern times to illustrate the reasons and to provide a demonstration about the rich history of sport before 1800. One of the virtues of world history is to make comparisons across time and space in order to elicit differences and similarities, and this chapter offers that opportunity. The main thrust of the book, however, is to follow the history of modern international sports. Chapter 3 traces the beginnings of modern athletics, and Chapter 4 tracks the spread of these activities around the world. The final chapter discusses the importance of the globalization of modern sports.

The emphasis is upon the major world sports, roughly the top ten, as measured by the interest of fans and participants. All sports cannot be covered, but unanswered questions about other activities probably can be satisfied by reference to the Encyclopedia of World Sport (1996) that provides descriptions of 300 sports around the globe. At times I have given the basic rules of a sport, but they are partial at best. For greater detail about rules a reader can consult the Rand McNally Illustrated Dictionary of Sports (1978), Rules of the Game (1990), or Sports, the Complete Visual Reference (2000). For statistical information the annual almanacs by Sports Illustrated or ESPN are useful.

Further reading

Melvin L. Adelman, “Modernization Theory and Its Critics,” Encyclopedia of American Social History (New York: Scribners, 1993), vol. I, pp. 348–56; Gerry Brown and Michael Morrison (eds), ESPN: Information Please Sports Almanac (New York: Hyperion, 2002). Diagram Group, Rules of the Game (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1990); Editors of Sports Illustrated, Sports Almanac (Boston: Little Brown and Company, 1996); Francois Fortin, Sports: the Complete Visual Reference (Willowdale, Ontario, Canada: Firefly Books, 2000); Allen Guttmann, From Ritual to Record: The Nature of Modern Sports (New York: Columbia University Press, 1978); David Levinson and Karen Christensen (eds), Encylopedia of World Sport (Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO, 1996) 3 vols; Benjamin Lowe, The Beauty of Sport (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1977); Robert R. Sands, Anthropology, Sport, and Culture (Westport, CT: Bergin & Garvey, 1999); Garry J. Smith, “The Noble Sports Fan,” in D. Stanley Eitzen (ed.), Sport in Contemporary Society: An Anthology (New York: St. Martin’s, 1993, fourth edition), pp. 3–14; Peter N. Stearns, “Modernization and Social History: Some Suggestions and a Muted Cheer,” Journal of Social History, vol. 14 (Winter 1980), pp. 189–209; Bob Stewart and Aaron Smith, “Australian Sport in a Postmodern Age,” International Journal of the History of Sport, vol. 17 (June–September 2000), pp. 278–304; Graeme Wright, Rand McNally Illustrated Dictionary of Sports (Chicago: Rand McNally & Company, 1978).

Chapter 2

The Athletic Imperative and the Reasons for Sport

Every person is born with athletic capability and every person is predestined, “hard wired,” to develop that physical potential. This is an imperative that is a part of human nature. The first part of this chapter explores that foundational aspect of sports and then in the second part offers a taxonomy of influences, or reasons, involved in the formation of sports.

The athletic imperative

Abraham Maslow (1908–1970) who was the foremost twentieth-century theorist concerning human motivation recognized the fact of predestined physicality. He was one of the three great psychologists of the twentieth century. Observations of his own child led him away from the other two great theorists of psychology, Sigmund Freud (1856–1939), who examined repressed thoughts, and B. F. Skinner (1904–1990), who studied the influence of outside forces on behavior. Maslow noticed that his baby had an inner agenda and timetable that instructed the child to roll over, to walk, and to move independent of his parent’s teaching. Maslow and other scholars realized that physical activity was inborn to human beings and was a major force in human evolution. In growing up children learn to walk, throw, run, climb, carry, lift and perform basic motor skills. Developing these skills and using them throughout life is common to all humankind. In short, humans are sentient beings impelled to move; it is the biologic destiny of the species. Thus, all humans begin life with the potential to be an athlete.

It would appear, in addition, that there exists for humans a certain joy in movement. The great runner Roger Bannister who grew up awkward and introspective in Bath, England recalled a moment of physical revelation while on a beach during his youth:

In this supreme moment I leapt in sheer joy. I was startled, and frightened by the tremendous excitement that so few steps could create. I glanced round uneasily to see if anyone was watching. A few more steps—self-consciously now and firmly gripping the original excitement. The earth seemed almost to move with me. I was running now, and a fresh rhythm entered my body. No longer conscious of my movement I discov...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface
• 1 Introduction
• 2 The Athletic Imperative and the Reasons for Sport
• 3 The Emergence of Modern Sports
• 4 The Globalization of Sport
• 5 The Significance of Global Sports
• Index