Sport Development in the United States

High Performance and Mass Participation

Peter Smolianov, Dwight Zakus, Joseph Gallo

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9780415810876
• eBook ISBN: 9781135075682
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Commerce
• Subtopic: Sociologie

The development of both elite, high performance sport and mass participation, grassroots-level sport are central concerns for governments and sports governing bodies. This important new study is the first to closely examine the challenges and opportunities for sports development in the United States, a global sporting giant with a unique, market-driven sporting landscape.

Presenting an innovative model of integrated sports development, the book explores the inter-relationship between elite and mass sport across history, drawing on comparative international examples from Australia to the former USSR and Eastern bloc countries. At the heart of the book is an in-depth empirical study of three (traditional and emerging) sports in the US – tennis, soccer and rugby – that offer important lessons on the development of elite sport, methods for increasing participation, and the establishment of new sports in new markets.

No other book has attempted to model sports development in the United States in such depth before. Therefore this should be essential reading for all students, researchers, administrators or policy-makers with an interest in sports development, sports management, sports policy, or comparative, international sport studies.

1 Introduction

Phenomenon of elite and mass sport

Sport is known to serve a great variety of social, cultural, political, and economic purposes for countries of the world. It also serves nationalistic purposes, as witnessed in most of the mega events in the past fifty years. National governments around the world increasingly invest resources into the systematic development of sport and athletes. Often this is part of a governing political party platform: for example, the use of sport as a policy tool to reduce health care costs, improve education and social inclusion, or prepare the nation’s population to enhance competitiveness and reputation, whether militarily or chauvinistically.¹ Simply, a well-coordinated, successful sport system can achieve a range of goals. The reality of such a sport system is, however, complex.

It is this complexity of sport development systems that overwhelms most sport managers, sport specialists, coaches, policy makers, government workers, and students. In the next chapter we present a model of a sport development system to illustrate and deal with this complexity. Any sport development system for a particular nation that is holistic and comprehensive will be complex. And it must be remembered that each nation is unique in its origin and in its flux. While the current fad is to identify and implement what is seen as “best practice” in another nation’s sport development system this can be a fraught process, like fitting square pegs into round holes. There can only be approximations of “best practice” across nations. That many people, even those studying or operating in one, are not aware of or do not understand the complexity of sport development systems is not derogatory, it is a fact.

As with any systemic aspect of society, a sport system evolves out of the historical circumstances of that civilization and out of the founding ideology and the policy devices through which the society seeks to better its members’ lives. Overall, the way a country or society has sought to defend itself ideologically and militarily over history gives an indication of its sport philosophy and system.

The onerous conditions imposed by Britain on its American colonies that became the United States of America (USA) led these colonies to revolt. The religious and military nature of many of the founding settlers of the USA resulted in a strongly liberal constitution which emphasized protection of individual freedoms for this new nation, along with a strong military establishment. This history combined with strong political and economic market conservatism point to the founding U.S. ideology: a constitutional republic² and capitalist society backed by a large and strong military. The U.S. sport system differs greatly from nations with a “socialist” or a welfare State position.³ It is market-driven, directing resources to activities that are financially self-sustaining. The pluses and minuses of this approach will be the analytical center piece of this book. We do not presume to say what the USA should do with its sport system, merely indicate where it might better maximize its sporting potential.

Sport in the USA embodies the particular historical development of capitalism and constitutionalism in the country. Under a strong neo-liberalist ideology and austerity-focused economic policy that began in the Reagan presidency, the marketability of sport at high school, college, university, and the professional/Olympic (elite) continues to evolve along market and business principles generating large revenues and social focus. Following the global financial crisis of 2007/2008, mass sport (i.e., sport for the broader population and all levels of sport development below the elite level) has suffered as the middle class was hollowed out and had less discretionary funds to spend on sport. Despite this, questions remain of what the future might hold for all U.S. citizens.

The level and degree of government regulation in the USA is markedly different from many other nations in the world. The U.S. Constitution supports individual freedom, reduced government intervention in peoples’ lives, and a number of cherished freedoms. Though a particular type of liberalism exists in the USA, the reality is that government involvement in everyday U.S. life is rather considerable. Elected politicians cannot abide by this constitutionalism, as they become more involved with every piece of legislation they produce and pass. There is always some type of State intervention and therefore regulation at all levels of the nation and its governments. That is a reality of life in any country, big or small. If you have a political system and government bureaucracies, they make, pass, and implement legislation and policies, but little of this activity has direct involvement in U.S. sport.

To best understand how the U.S. sport system evolved, it is important to look at the key reasons for sport itself. In earlier times, sport was not always based on a contradiction between elite and mass sport. Many pre-capitalist civilizations, from ancient China and Greece, and State socialist societies such as the Soviet Union, saw “sport” as an activity for all citizens: as a form of controlling the population with healthy, productive activity not otherwise obtainable in society. The centrality of sport to lives and cultures through various historical periods is evident from scholarly work. Civilizations in different historical periods provided modern nations with many of the values, ideals, and goals that frame the relationship and purpose of sport for a society. The following overview sets the scene through which we can analyze modern sport systems, because what we currently have is a product of the past in more ways than are often understood.

History and purpose of elite and mass sport development

Since ancient Chinese, Egyptian, Indian, Greek, Mayan, and other civilizations, national leaders stimulated the masses and their elite leaders to practice “sport” and physical exercise for many purposes. These included military preparedness, health maintenance, excellence, and religious and cultural participation. Each of these purposes has importance at all times, although at certain historical points, some take on more immediate salience. In more immediate past centuries, the most common reason for physical training was readiness for war.

Sport for military preparedness

Throughout history, the preparation of warriors was critically important to a society’s survival. Human history revolved around the need to either defend populations and resources or to attack other societies for their human and material assets. In either case, this meant that physical preparedness, of males in particular, was a central activity. What is now identified as sport was often training for military personnel (and society’s elites). The rise and fall of various empires in history was associated with a rise in fitness when winning wars; and as Paul Kennedy (1988) noticed analyzing Persian, Roman, and other empires, fitness deteriorated after lands were conquered.

Sport and war also connect on physical and ideological levels. Both demand courage, endurance, exertion, and patriotism from participants. Many mass sporting activities developed out of army exercises (fitness programs) and games played by the military and other elites, especially in exclusive schools for these upper class males (who then became leaders of colonization in all of its forms). From colonial times, militia and military preparation for war drove physical training in what became the USA.

After the American Civil War, public school systems began to adopt physical education programs, and many states passed laws mandating the teaching of physical education programs. Concurrently and for the first time, specialized training was developed for physical education instructors. While physical education appeared universal, such authors as Dalleck and Kravitz (2012) and Krause (2012) noted that the necessity for improvement of soldiers’ fitness drove the advancement of physical training methods throughout U.S. history.

During World War I, one of every three American draftees was deemed physically unfit for military service. Many of those drafted were highly unfit prior to the beginning of their military training (Barrow & Brown, 1988; Wuest & Bucher, 1995). This led to many efforts between wars to extend physical education to all levels of schooling. During World War II, the physical fitness of draftees again fell short. The armed forces had to reject nearly half of all draftees or give them noncombat positions (Rice, Hutchinson, & Lee, 1958). Again, U.S. schools instituted rigorous post-war physical education requirements, and there was greater interest in the teaching of physical education, including the preparation of physical education teachers, and an increasing recognition of the scientific foundations of physical education.

In the second part of the twentieth century, the “Cold War” between the USA and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) led to the expansion of both mass and high-performance sport to prepare for a possible war and to show ideological supremacy in global competitions. Fitness of the U.S. military in the Korean War again fell short of expectations, which moved the federal government to set up the President’s Council on Fitness, Sport and Nutrition in 1956 to raise fitness standards in schools across the country. The striving for military advantage continued to unite and mobilize U.S. and Soviet societies and drive excellence in such areas as sport, medicine, education, and science. New methods of fitness and adaptation to extreme conditions, innovative medical care, and technology developed for military purposes first served the army elite, then passed to other troops and, finally, to the masses. Today, the military continues to drive fitness and sport in both the USA and Russia.

The above-said indicates that the military around the world and in the USA in particular contributed to high performance and to the fitness and health of the masses. However, today one question arises whether the armed forces benefit from society and sporting organizations through youth being fit for military service. For example, every ten days in Ancient Sparta, the youth passed in public review before assessment officials. If the youth were solid and vigorous as the result of exercise, they were praised; if they were fat or flaccid and lacked vigor, they were punished. This extreme approach allowed Sparta to prepare some of the best soldiers in history. We are unfortunately moving to the other extreme: this convenient, physically easy, entertaining, consumerist life makes most of the population weak and unhealthy.

As people tend not to give an hour a day to exercise, the pool of potential military personnel and athletes is depleted. If our armies are becoming more professional and relying less on mass conscription, they involve a smaller number of recruits and have a weaker connection to their society. The days of standing armies will increase with many nations becoming vulnerable in terms of the ability to draw on enlisted armed forces. This may also limit the transferability of knowledge and practices to the masses, particularly that pertaining to the science of fitness.

Sport for education and health maintenance

The basic tenets of the modern ideology for Western sport, Olympism, according to IOC dogma involves

a state of mind, not a system, exalting and combining in a balanced whole the qualities of body, mind and will (Mens sano e corpore sano), or a doctrine of the fraternity between the body and the soul (Mens fervida e corpore lacertoso), where this state of mind has emerged from a double cult: that of effort and that of Eurhythmy (a taste of excess and a taste of measure combined) (Zakus, 2005).

This is at least the guiding philosophy. The key idea is that it is not just the body that needs improvement and challenge through sport development and competition. The mind and the soul (i.e., mental and moral) elements of the individual also required such improvement.

De Coubertin’s proselytizing points to a wider excellence through sport in education or as noted in “la pedagogic sportive.” De Coubertin’s monograph L’Education anglaise en France, set out his beliefs of how English sport education provided the necessary ingredients for a vibrant French nation and strong males for military availability.⁴ Here we again see the relationship between sport and “general values associated with physical education-health, patriotism, military preparedness, character development, and the socialization of a democratic elite” (MacAloon, 2008, p. 116). His political activities in the 1870–1880 period were focused on physical education and mass sport. In this context, de Coubertin argued for a British model of formal sport rather than on German or Swedish models of gymnastics, but these were not the only versions of elite and mass sport.

In Eastern traditions, the martial arts originally developed for warriors were actually ancient forms of fitness training and as such also served as a form of preventative medicine for the broader population. For example, yoga was once closely connected to ancient Indian fighting. Individualistic, highly spiritual and elitist, yoga has transformed into a mass physical regime movement. For example, in 2011, yoga had an estimated 20 million U.S. participants compared with about 4 million in 2001 (Broad, 2012). Interestingly, yoga still finds a place in modern military training. For example, U.S. specialist military forces, such as the Navy Seal unit, are trained in yoga because they see its application to situations where stealth and calm could make the difference between life and death. Some of these military specialists even set up their own yoga schools, blending yoga training with martial arts and their special combat techniques (Lawrence, 2011), completing the circle of its Ancient purpose.

Despite spending more on health care than other developed countries, the USA lags behind European nations such as France and the United Kingdom in both human longevity and health outcomes. Many examples provided by Luzi (2012) showed the numerous ways in which, although spending more, the overall health outcomes in the USA are lower. Luzi argued that preventive health interventions such as physical exercise can reduce health costs for society and may be a solution for indebted governments in an era of shrinkage of national health resources. Luzi suggested that one possible way to deliver the expertise and the practice of physical exercise is through a national health system.

Such a system could possibly introduce reimbursement to professionals who deliver physical training programs. This approach has the drawback of adding some costs to public administration in the short term, although the final balance in the medium/long term would be favorable (Luzi, 2012). Luzi also suggested elevating the vast number of existing fitness centers (mainly private, but also public) to the status of medical fitness centers. These centers, with a mission of providing training programs aimed at maintaining health and treating specific diseases, could enhance health in the USA. Their success would, however, depend largely on having highly qualified exercise specialists operating these facilities and that these services were affordable for the broader U.S. population. A similar practice has emerged in Canada, where health insurance fully covers services of certified physiotherapists who supervise exercise programs, for example, at Wynn Fitness centers aimed at maximizing both performance and the well-being of mass participants.

Similarly, well-educated PE teachers and daily PE classes can prevent obesity-related illnesses, particularly if integrated with after-school sport programs. According to an analysis by Baker (2012), childhood fitness has been a public concern for more than a half-century in the USA. Since President Dwight D. Eisenhower formed the Council on Fitness in 1956, obesity has become an epidemic, but many U.S. students are still being provided little or no PE instruction. PE classes have recently been cut for prevailing economic reasons. Nearly half of U.S. high school students had no PE classes in an average week in 2012. In New York City, that number was 20.5 percent, compared with 14.4 percent a decade earlier. Just 20 percent of elementary schools in San Francisco met the state’s requirements of twenty minutes per day (Baker 2012). Obesity was among the key factors why in 2010 the USA fell to thirty-sixth place in the global ranking of life expectancy, down from twenty-second in 1990 (Tavernise, 2012). Knox (2013) was alarmed that people in the USA have not only shorter lives but also more illness and injury than citizens of sixteen other wealthy nations, and the gap is widening.

Mass and elite sport programs are also used to improve psychological and moral health. According to Parker-Pope (2013), the suicide rate among people in the USA aged thirty-fiv...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• 1 Introduction: phenomenon of elite and mass sport
• 2 Ideal-type model for an integrated elite and mass sport system
• 3 From one Cold War to another: recent U.S. sport development
• 4 U.S. elite and mass tennis, rugby, and soccer: the state of the art and opportunities for development
• 5 Reality and possible advancements for U.S. sport: improving health and performance
• Bibliography
• Index