Sportsmanship is Compassion

Let me be honest. I usually don’t read news articles. Maybe just a little in Japanese but I wouldn’t click the sport section. It’s because I’m not really a sports person. I heard that it’s an American football season in the public mind, however, I don’t know what is going on since I don’t know the rule of American football. But when I was given this assignment, one article caught my eyes and heart. The article is “Rival football teams work together for a touching touchdown” on kake.com.

Here is what this article about. 

Canton Middle School and Waynesville Middle School are the precursor for Pisgah and Tuscola, one of the area's biggest football rivalries. Canton hosted Waynesville on September 22nd, and there was one of the audiences, Lou Stamey. He is a student at Canton Middle School, and was born with quadriplegic cerebral palsy, which means the condition affects his whole body. He’s wheelchair-bound, and can hardly speak. His father has passes away, but before he died, he passed on a love for football. On the game day, a miracle happened. Canton coach drew up a play for this game, and Waynesville didn’t even stop, yet cooperated with them. The quarterback took the snap and handed off to Lou, and his classmate Brayden West pushed Lou from the 50-yard line. Everyone was screaming his name, and his mom was giving a shout. Lou made defenders fall and reached the end zone. Then both teams surrounded him to chant his name. Lou can’t say anything but he got a big smile on his face.

This represents the humanity that we all should have in both sports and everyday life. In sports game, all the players want is win. However, the players in that game, assigned the highest priority to let Lou play as a part of team, and showed him that he can do anything he wants to. 

This news reminded me of the days when I was practicing classical ballet so hard when I was in middle school. My ballet teacher was very strict about being polite and respectful. She taught me that even if I could dance well, if I wasn’t polite and rude to people, I wouldn’t be able to be a great dancer in the true sense of the term. One time I had to dance with people who were around fifty years old and started dancing five years ago. When you dance ballet with people, it becomes a team work. We have to make the timing right and synchronize our moves. I started dancing at age of five, so obviously I could dance better than them at that time. I had to teach them the choreography and never forgot to be polite and respectful even if they couldn’t pick up the choreography. To be honest, I wasn't even thinking of being respectful at that time, however, at a later date, I heard from the teacher that the people felt so happy because I was polite, and she was proud of me. As of this moment, I don’t dance anymore. But I know that what she taught me has been affecting the way I interact with people even now.

I believe that playing sports is not always about being “strong” and win. Sport is something that makes us grow and teaches us how to show our humanity and dignity. I have so much respect to the coach who planned this whole thing, however, I have even more respect to the players of the other team. They don’t even know Lou but no one stopped, and yet cooperated fully with them. Even though the point wasn’t counted, it sure has become the special moment that he would never forget. They taught us that sometimes there is more important thing than win. It’s compassion. Also this showed us that sport can give people hope and happiness. I hope we can witness like this moment more through sport.