Siege

April means that it's tournament time for a lot of my high school friends. The thing about high school tournaments is that it's a very mixed bag. You could face an opponent who has no clue what they are doing, or you could face someone who is a national champion.

I was talking to my friends about back in the day (har har) when I competed in high school. My comment was that my only regret was the fact that I hit many of my opponents. While that isn't a bad thing (it happens), i'm certainly not proud of doing it.

One of my friends commented "don't you feel bad for destroying everyone you played?" What she meant was that back in high school, especially my last year, I was rather dominant in my region. Or more accurately, no one had a bloody chance against me. Her point was that it was rather unfriendly to go all out on someone who has no chance of winning, and it would likely turn them away from the sport. This girl is by no means a stranger to competition. She has reached as far as the semi finals at nationals.

My feelings are that if you're at a competition, then you'd better expect the possibility of getting 0 points. One of my other friends agreed. In fact, she has finished an entire tournament giving up a total of only 5 points. I guess it helps that she's a former national champion.

I'd like to list this as situation 1. Just plain old, do you go all out against weak competition? Please feel free to apply this to things other than sports.

The 2nd situation, was one that the first friend mentioned. She mentioned that her school's coach tells her not to give others 0 points even if she is able.

I've been in that kind of situation. My school's coach didn't mind when I gave the opponent 0's, but she let me know jokingly that I didn't have to win by that much all the time.

In one case, the coach of my opponent actually lectured me saying that it wasn't sportsman like to win by so much. My answer was simple "this is a competition, I am here to win. Hopefully, so are your students. If they aren't, then they should just leave now." He was pretty unhappy about my answer to say the least, but that coach was just pissed that I helped my team to beat his team when we were losing.

So the 2nd situation is, in a school setting (or any somewhat more relaxed setting), would you still go all out? I think you'd have to apply this to sports, but if you can find a way to apply it in other ways (competitive math anyone? ), feel free.

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aKula

Never felt bad at losing by a large amount at school sports as often I'd play a sport I was new to and the team as a whole didn't have much experience in. Some other schools seemed to have all the state players. I didn't really mind if we lost by some large amount. Most of the time we kept trying as best we could, except for our last game of cricket in year 9 where we were all sick of getting back about 2 hours after everyone else and just went out not caring.
The times I did play a sport which my school was good at I again just played the best I could. Though I can imagine that if you're about to win againts a much less skillful opponent you probably won't play like you would againts an equally skilled opponent (not as "fired up").

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Hektore

I think the most anti-sportsmanship thing you can do is take it easy on someone on purpose. I would think in most competitions people rarely get totally blindsided by someone(beaten really bad when they weren't expecting it). So if you come out and half-ass it against me because I'm not worth the effort -especially if I know- it means you don't respect me as a competitor. That is twice as demeaning as if you just went out and kicked the crap out of me. Just because you win by a lot, doesn't automatically make you unsportsman like, winning by a lot and treating the loser like crap makes you unsportsman like.

I think a lot of this stems from the fact that people act like it's such a terrible thing to lose and worse to lose by a lot. Granted, losing isn't as good as winning, but nobody wins them all. Ever. And sometimes you lose bad, that's just part of the game. Learning how to lose is just as important as learning how to win.

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The advantage law is the best law in rugby, because it lets you ignore all the others for the good of the game.

Topper

I agree. It seems (at least from my distant observation over the last few years) that especially in schools there is a misguided emphasis on "self-esteem" these days. Not that self-esteem isn't important, because I truly believe it is. But you won't teach someone to feel good about themselves by coddling and shielding them from reality. Instead you'll have someone whose esteem is going to come crashing down on them when they go out into the real world and find it's not always friendly and definitely not fair.

Losing sucks, hate it when I lose because I'm competitive by nature. But the point is I know HOW to lose.

balefire88

I think these factors come into play when judging sportsmanship. Disclaimer: These are all based off of sports I play and/or watch.

1) Team vs. Individual
2) Informal setting vs. competition
3) Point limits & Time limits

Individual:
If I'm just playing light games with friends, just cracking jokes in between, or even chatting while we're playing, then no point in destroying a friend who is worse than me. In fact, I'd try to make points (in tennis) last longer by keeping the ball in play longer. I usually still win because they screw up first if they're the weaker player, and my competitive spirit is satisfied with the fact that I won. If i'm playing somewhat seriously or against a better player, and there is no chatting going on, then by all means, go ahead and blank me. I'll just hope to practice and return the favor.

If you're in a light kung fu sparring match, sometimes you get paried with people far below or far above your ability or weight class. This is usually a huge disadvantage. Although there's no joking or taking it easy in matches like these, advanced students are not told to go all out against lighter opponents. But they're not told to go easy either. Basically, an advanced student will try to show the newer student the mistakes he is mistaking, while the newer student is told to fight as if 1 hit can make the difference. THis is because in a real life fight, 1 hit truly could make the difference if you ahve to fight a strong opponent. So going without getting hit for hte advanced student is acceptable, but not in a way where he totally dominates the beginner student. This is based off when our Shi Gung spars with us. (our teacher)

In a competitive setting for sparring matches, the goal is usually to win by being the fastest to 3 or 5 points (clean hits only), or a set limit of time (usually pretty short. Its incredibly tiring to fight someone for more than 5 staright minutes. After 3-4 matches, you really start losing focus). In this case, I see no point in giving points away. Same with tennis. If you're going to win, then 6-0 6-0 6-0 in tennis is acceptable, and a 5-0 beatdown in sparring is completely acceptable as well. You are just elongatiing the match by giving points away, and taking it easy is almost an insult. The weaker opponent will surely try his best to take a point off you, so to do anythign less than your best to prevent this is an insult to our way of learning. Usually our sparring is not full contact (as in full power hits), so 5-0 is not to beat them up, but to show technical expertise.

Team sports is probably the biggest grey area I see. Again if goofing around in a 5v5 game, and the guy guarding me is just incredibly weak, either due to skills or height (basketball), then I wont fully take advantage of it because it lessens the fun he and his team will have. Plus, if i lower my play quality to where it just better than his, then the rest of my team can try to matchup well with the rest of his team. However, if the other team has a player who is dominating one of my team mates, then I'll try to even it up as best as i can by trying to dominate the person assigned to me. In high school/college/pro games, especially basketball, but even american football, you usually try to run out hte clock once you ahve established a sizable lead. You don't try to run up the score mercilessly. Against this is only usually true. In college football, they sometimes run up the score because that factors into the system that decides the bowl contenders.

I think sports wehre the time limit is short (sparring = 5 minutes, boxing, or a set limit of points you ahve to reach = sparring, tennis, squash), in a competition, you can go ahead and try to reach there as fast as you can. However, in sports wehre the time limit is long and there is no point limit: basketball (real games, not street), football, soccer: runnig up the score in compettitions is considered poor form. Again, very subjective, but general standard is not to do it. Also, the harder yout ry when you don't have to, the more chane to injure yourself and ruin the rest of your season is what they believe in pro sports.

Last point I want to bring up is that they sometimes will give you a severe mismatch even in real competition. Its not the fault of the opponent, but sometimes the matchup systems can be bad. This happened at a kung fu tournament we went to where they did not have enough people for the light and middle weight classes and merged them. Our members decided that in the full contact matches, they would hold back against lower weight class members. Again, just a choice.

Team: Again, if this is a light game

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Sultana

I think that it can be a very helpful learning experience to find out what one is *really* up against in a competition setting. I'd really hate to have people go easy on me, and give me a false sense of confidence, and then when it really counts, have to wake up and smell the coffee.

Personally, I'd want to know right out the gate. People shouldn't be turned off from a sport they enjoy just because they may not win comps, just like they shouldn't do a sport (or whatever) just because they win.

I think the most important thing one learns from sports, and from competition, is what *you* are made of.

Also, I have friends who have won their division in dance competitions where everyone knows that particular comp, or division, or whatever, was a total joke. Yet they display that trophey with pride and list it on their dance bios...and no one respects them for it. On the other hand, last year I was in a very difficult dance comp, where full-time professionals from all over the country showed up! I didn't win even third place, *but* I know I did very well on the stage with those ladies, and that pleases me much more.
Plus I was only one vote away from People's Choice. LA! heh.

Edited to add NOTE: Heh, and this coming from a person who wasn't even allowed to try out for sports in school, because if I was good enough to get a slot, that would take away someone else's opportunity to get that slot and play. If that isn't completely F*-ed Up, I don't know what is.
I can't believe I'm not more screwed up than I am!

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At night, the ice weasels come." -

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My goal? To fulfill my potential.

The_Jazz

First, any coach that takes an opposing athlete aside to lecture them about winning by too much over that coach's athlete should be fired. Seriously, that's just poor form all around. As both a coach and an athlete, I'm embarrassed by the simple thought. If I had been faced by a similar situation back in my competitive days, I would have probably either laughed in the coach's face or cursed them out. The fact that the athlete performed poorly means that the coach didn't do their job to have the athlete prepared. We compete for a reason - to find out who's better.

Back in the day, I was a a good enough runner to get scholarship offers and win some big races. I knew that on any given day, I could pretty much destroy anyone else in town on the track, with one glaring exception. If I did that while training for something else, no problem. I trained through most of the early meets of track season both my junior and senior years, but I was undefeated at most of my distances. There's no shame in not giving your all if that's what the microcycle calls for. If that means that you give up a few points or a few seconds to get the win, then so be it.

I've been on the flip side of the coin. My junior year of college, I spent the entire indoor season training for the outdoor 5k and 10k and didn't run the 5k indoors all year. Instead, I spent every single meet running nothing longer than a 1000m to work on speed, and I was dead last every single race. That sucked and was no fun, but it didn't reflect on me as a person, just as an althete trying to run that particular distance. If you're not prepared or able to compete at the level of your opponent, then you shouldn't be surprised or disappointed when you get beaten.

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Sultana

Plus, for an athlete it's a very bad habit to not give it your all every single time you do your thing. As a dance idol of mine says, "It's not 'Practice Makes Perfect', it's "Perfect Practice Makes Perfect.'"

__________________
"Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra and then suddenly it flips over, pinning you underneath.
At night, the ice weasels come." -

Matt Groening

My goal? To fulfill my potential.

Smooth23

I also find the idea of winning by smaller margin stupid, but apparantly theres people out there that dont think that way. Not exactly sports, but its competition so I"ll tell this story anyhow. One time a few years ago I was doing an x-box Halo tournament with about 20 guys from work. Well, I completely dominated everyone else in every match, often with zero deaths(which is amazing, because I dont even own my own xbox, im just a natural). Afterwards I was told that people were complaining and didn't want me to go to another one, because apparantly killing your oponents in a video game about killing your oponents is bad sportsmanship... They actually tried to say that on games like capture the flag or murderball I shouldn't be killing just whatever oponent I see, but wait till they have the flag/skull. Stupidly enough, they even complained because in murderball I ran around with the skull and killed everyone instead of just playing keep away.
Long and boring, but thats my story about idiots.

Toaster126

People don't like losing, but in a competition, there are distinctions, and thus winners and losers. They keep score for a reason.

It's extremely disrespectful to sandbag so someone can lose by less.

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"The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers." (M. Scott Peck)

Siege

Ok, it seems that all the responders say that people should go all out and hold nothing back.

Now let me present another situation. This one is slightly less common, but I know for a fact that it does occur.

Let's say player A and player B are from the same school/club/district/whatever and have the same coach. Eventually, A and B meet up in the draw. Let's say that A is a much stronger player than B. If you were A would you sandbag to help B's overall chance at seeding in the future?

*The way seeding works sometimes is a committee decides who should be seeded (don't ask me why it's this way, I don't like it to be honest.) regardless of ranking. So it is possible for player C to be seeded 1st while player D is seeded 2nd even though player D is ranked first in the district at the time.

The way sandbagging would work in the above situation is that when the next tournament comes, the committee might look at a previous tournament and say "oh look, player B did so well against player A! Let's seed them ahead of player C even though player C is ranked higher overall"

__________________
"Your name's Geek? Do you know the origin of the term? A geek is someone who bites the heads off chickens at a circus. I would never let you suck my dick with a name like Geek"

--Kevin Smith

This part just makes my posts easier to find

Rodney

In answer to your first question -- just go all out. The only way to be a bad winner is to taunt the loser, do a flashy victory dance with lots of implied insults, or otherwise act like an unsportsmanlike a-hole. The victor owes personal courtesy to the loser, and nothing more -- certainly not a handicap to make them feel better. As someone else said, that can actually be destructive.

In answer to your second question -- that's cheating, more or less. You're giving somebody an advantage they shouldn't have by _not_ playing all out. I imagine that this seeding process can be political and subjective, but what kind of playing environment do you have if the second rank of players consists of the first rank's friends, and are _only_ at that level by the friends' connivance. And a third rank of players who are possibly _better_ than the second rank, but don't have the right friends. What would you say about a sport played like that?

It doesn't matter what other people do. Play the game, not the politics. Or the game means nothing.

Poloboy

Well, the high school sports I participated in were competitive. In volleyball at least, we eventually went on to compete at the provincial and national levels. That meant that even though our team was a step above the other teams in the city, we couldn't afford to go easy on anybody. We weren't cocky, and we didn't rub it in peoples' faces, but I think it shows a lack of pride and respect (for yourselves and the other team) to not "show up" and play/perform your best. I would consider this to be in a competitive circuit though.

Now, playing in intramural soccer etc. at university, I don't think being 100% competitive is totally appropriate. Universities have varsity teams where you can compete against other serious teams. Intramurals are meant for trying new sports, meeting people, having fun.

So, in the end, I think it comes down to being aware of what arena you're playing in, so to speak. In high school sports, you have to be aware that while you might not take the badminton team seriously, somebody at another school probably does. If they hand your ass to you on a platter, you can't complain about it. Competition between high schools, regardless of the sport, is different from fooling around in P.E. I think it's completely appropriate that someone who takes the given sport seriously should try their absolute hardest in every match. You would be denying yourself learning/advancement opportunities if you didn't.

I've been thinking about team sports though. If your team is competitive, you have a responsibility to your team to try your hardest. But as balefire88 said, if it's an individual sport, I think that if you're considerably stronger than someone then you may very well choose to take the opportunity to teach the other person a few things, and structure the game/fight/whatever so that they can learn as much as possible from it, even if it means you losing a few points. It's still your choice to go all out though, especially if you're training for a tournament and need to condition yourself mentally.

flstf

The sports I played were baseball, football and basketball and I have been on both sides of one-sided scores. Once the game is out of hand, I liked the coaches who substituted in some of the 2nd and 3rd stringers. In other words there comes a time in a lopsided game where it seems sporting to back off a little and give some of the players who hardly ever get a chance to play.