Manu Fieldel
Years ago
Fighting in sport: okay or not okay?
No one person has all the answers to this, so I'm hoping this community can combine to share ideas on the topic.
As a sports league, the NBL has a social responsibility (morality tells me that, and surely it's the same for everyone), yet jumps at a chance to advertise conflict like tonight and the Joey v Wildcats thing a few years back.
Is this okay? And to what degree is fighting/conflict in sport okay? My opinion is yes, such fights that we have seen over the past few years in the NBL have been fine, and the advertisement of this is okay too. The way I see it is that unless you're striking someone violently with full force and complete intention like a thug, then it's nothing too much. Childress' hit on Wagstaff was too much. (I was outright thuggery, as much as I dislike Wagstaff.) Shoving and the shoulder charging type behaviour of earlier tonight is fine by me. I feel like people as a whole need not be so sensitive toward this kind of thing, because being affected by it is pretty weak.
Even if a kid were to see this kind of thing, it opens up the potential for adults to provide a life lesson (proactive behaviour) about conflict and how sport differs from the real world, rather than letting emotion take the wheel and covering the kid's eyes from such horrors (reactive), for example. Can society be smart enough to not let emotion drive their actions and decision making, and be level-headed about seeing a fight on a sporting field?
Maybe I'm well off the mark. I'd like to see what we all think.
*Please spare this thread from bigotry, personal attacks and off-topic crap.
