Poor Sportsmanship in Music

In looking for writing ideas, I came across a site that offered this question as an inspiration for high school writing students: “What if school sports were dropped?” For most teenage students, this question might elicit long diatribes on the victimization of athletes whose interests are constantly overlooked or ignored in lieu of things they don’t care about. Certainly a fair number of examples would offer some reference to being misunderstood. I expect, if I had been presented with this writing topic in high school I would have chosen any other subject I found tolerable simply to avoid letting my classmates know how I really felt.

I have few issues with sports in general. Physical activity is good for us, and I know so because smart people have told me – regardless of whether or not I follow the advice. I frequently (though irregularly) enjoy watching sports and following my favorite teams. Indeed, I attended many games in my high school days (although most were required for me as a member of the pep-band). And with that mitigating circumstance, we come to one of the many complicating elements of my childhood disdain for many things athletic.

Frequently, if not even most of the time, I find that a dislike or hatred of something is bred as a negative reaction to some related event or idea, rather than an objective and thoughtful consideration of the pros and cons of it. As many people can probably guess, and may even relate, I realize my general dislike for many things sport came as a reaction to negative feelings I associated with them. I would guess that almost exclusively, the off-putting experiences I had with my peers during my secondary school years could be somehow attributed to the “jocks” of my class.

I remember one particular event from my sixth grade year. It is surprising to me that it actually offends me more now than it did then. (Youthful ignorance is an extra-special brand of bliss.) As a means of moving up from childish games to more “mature” activities (and quite possibly as a simple attempt at acceptance, back when I still cared deeply about such things) I took up the practice of recess-time soccer. My experience was limited to whatever I had learned in P.E. over the previous five years and I was by no means better than average. I attempted to make up for my mediocrity by putting as much effort as possible into each game. I was most certainly not alone in this endeavor.

One chilly afternoon, a small core group of five or six boys, who had been playing for years after school in organized leagues and who possessed far superior skills to the rest of us, decided they didn’t want the hassle of fighting over who would team up with the lesser players (either in skill or in popularity, which I would soon find was the only thing that would matter in middle school). In a somewhat tactful way of avoiding the need to tell certain people they weren’t welcome, these boys proposed that they alone would take on the rest of us. How could we say no to that? We outnumbered them at least 3 to 1.

Naturally we crushed them. In a way, I admire their decision. It showed a certain maturity that they cared about more than simply winning. The extra challenge was certainly a chance for them to stretch their skills and improve. But now I see another side that troubles me much more now than it had back then. With all of the motives for simplicity and the nobility of being willing to lose, there stood one final truth: these boys would rather loose than play on the same team as some of the geeky, overweight, pimply, stunted, late-blooming rejects of the barely existent “perfectly-normal-in-every-way” crowd… or should that be clique?

Sixth grade was only the beginning of what would eventually become my own personal social schism from the general likes and interests of my peers. Over the next several years I would grow to reject their music, their heroes, their automatic contempt for authority, and any other distinguishing factor they would use to demonstrate how I was different. My reaction was to create my own set of interests and hobbies, most of which I tried simply because they seemed to be the opposite of what my classmates cared about, and frequently what they hated the most. Some never held, but those that did have survived with me to this day and I hold on to them with pride because I know I chose them for myself.

Earlier this year, the teachers of the Oregon Trail School District in Sandy, Oregon went on strike for sixteen days. The issues of the labor dispute are not relevant to my point, but some of the media coverage is. In between stories about each side’s position on this and that were the inevitable voices of the students. Nearly all of the interviews given by students were riddled with gripes about some sacrifice that a sports team had to make because of the walkout. I do not wish to make light of the fact that the Homecoming football game was eventually cancelled (the opposing team forfeited rather than playing a game behind a union picket line). It was a significant loss of an event, but it was not the only one. My concern was the narrow-mindedness of the students, none of which I knew, but who each reminded me of so many of the students I attended classes with inside those same walls. Rescheduling of many events was necessary. The drama department will likely be one show short of its usual three yearly productions. The winter band and choir concerts were necessarily shortened and combined. I am certain that any number of other clubs and organizations were forced to take similar actions to adjust. We heard about none of them within the mainstream coverage of the strike.

A game is much more difficult to reschedule, I realize, but that is only the beginning of my own personal list of concerns related to school sports. Sports are inherently competitive. Competition is something I tend to avoid whenever possible. Most of what I do in life falls, in my opinion, outside of the realm of competition. Nevertheless, some people seem determined to find a way of proving they are the best. But whenever there is recognition of something that is declared the best (through no small amount of subjectivity and opinion) there is the illusion of something being the worst. For sports this works well enough, but that pathology of competition and ranking has a way of bleeding into other activities, in which it does not belong.

I will use music as my primary example, as that is where I have the most experience. I grew up in Oregon public schools, which I have heard have some of the most competitive performing arts programs in the country. Attending the state choir and band contests left me with a strange feeling of disdain for other competitors. In such an environment of rankings and status, we all knew that someone else’s success could come as the result of our failure. Listening to other ensembles in a nearly empty auditorium, I was unable to appreciate what other people were doing, because acknowledging their talent and musicianship would suggest pessimism for my own ensemble’s prospects. I could do nothing but look for every fault, mistake, tuning problem, missed entrance, or “wrong” interpretation in each performance. Worst of all, I learned practically nothing.

When I moved to Washington to attend Pacific Lutheran University, I entered an entirely different musical atmosphere. There, everyone was supportive of everyone else. The large musical events I participated in, or observed, were not “competitions.” They were called “festivals.” The judges were not gone, but their roles were entirely different. Scores were given to each choir, and were not announced to the other groups; they didn’t care. More valuable and important was the verbal feedback and, frequently, one-on-one clinics with the “judges.” Most striking was the atmosphere of interaction. The auditorium was packed for the entire event, each ensemble in its own assigned space to take in and enjoy as many of the other performances as possible.

On its second year, the High School Choral Festival hosted at PLU had to be expanded to two days to accommodate the extra volume of singers that simply wouldn’t fit in the room. Family members who came to listen were turned away due to lack of seating. And when a choir gave a particularly stunning performance, the room did not exchange looks of despair, but ones of appropriate joy and appreciation. People didn’t notice when the tenor in the back row wore the wrong color pants. Soloists weren’t shaking with fear that a sour note would doom the entire ensemble. Directors never cut the music off before the end so the choir could leave the stage before their allotted time ran out, for fear of losing points (Believe me, this actually happens!)

Recently I heard talk that certain influential music directors in Oregon have made attempts to move toward a more “festival” like interaction between school bands and choirs. They want to do away with the cutthroat scoring systems and coveted rankings at the end of the day. They want their students to be able to enjoy the work of their colleagues and peers, and to succeed of their own accord. But many obstacles stand in the way of this process. If it is to succeed, it will likely do so only with the hard effort of those who wish the change to occur. The OSAA, or Oregon School Activities Association (which I now realize has a slightly ambiguous and overly general name), has said they will no longer sponsor, support, or manage musical events that do not have “competition” as one element of the proceedings. If there aren’t going to be any scores to report, they aren’t interested. It seems that those who desire this change will have to achieve it entirely on their own.

I have no finer example of the detrimental influence competitive sports has over other school activities than a memory from my days in high school choir. This particular year had been a good one for the Sandy Football team. They had their first home playoff game in many years and won it (all without the pep band, most of which was defiantly playing for the opening performance of Guys and Dolls the same night, infuriating any number of people who had never before acknowledged the significance of the band at all). The school was very excited to have a football team that was moving on to round two against Bend High School.

Sometime during the lead up to the second game, my choir happened to be attending a musical exchange that was much more of the “festival” variety. It was an independent festival run by Western Oregon University. The choirs all assembled in the auditorium (much as I would later witness at PLU) and listened to each performance, one by one. At the end, WOU’s choir treated us all to its own performance. Partway through their program, each member of the ensemble took a moment to tell us who they were and which High School they had attended. Cheers floated from various corners of the room as some of the represented schools acknowledged their alumni. It had been a blissful day of music for me and I have rarely been happier. It was partly because of that good mood that made the shock of what happened next all the more egregious to me. A member of the choir introduced herself and said she was from Bend High School. It was fortunate that people were applauding so loudly, for most people didn’t hear the wide receiver next to me call out a casual “boo.” I’m not sure what I said, or if I even said anything at all. Certainly my expression would have been enough to convey my contempt for what he had just done. If not for the embarrassment it would have brought on our choir and our school, I almost wish the room had been quiet, for all to hear his misplaced contempt for a distant representative of his future foe. This was one of the times that convinced me of how sports and athletes can take the competition far, far, far outside of its proper forum.

I don’t know what caused this misguided boy to progress beyond the desire to win, to a point where he had learned to instinctually hate “the enemy.” It is not a healthy line of thinking, and it is most certainly not advantageous for an athlete. The strong desire and determination he had been striving for would be much more effective if it resulted in more respect for the opposing team, not less. Certainly better teams than Sandy High School’s football squad have been beaten by a team they disliked so much they underestimated them. The following Monday, this boy and I shared a look that spoke volumes. I don’t know if he could tell, but I certainly hoped he knew that, for the first time, I was glad my school’s team had lost.