The Struggle for Sportsmanship

I decided to write this post because lately there have been many unfortunate situations in which sportsmanship has gone out the door. I know sports are competitive. If you know me really well you would know that I am one of the most competitive people out there. I'm passionate about sports and I have a love for them.

Sometimes things go out of hand in sports. I understand you are playing to win and people's emotions gets the best of them in different situations. When calls are made that the players don't agree with they will obviously not be happy with it and some will go to higher degrees to show their displeasure. For example, in basketball the referees are obviously not perfect and missed calls are made. There's quite a bit of yelling both from the coaches and the player's themselves. It's nothing new to us basketball nerds (at least I refer myself as that). There's also fights that can break out and taunting as well. In basketball, it's a very physical game. There's just the common fouls, flagrant fouls, and then there are technical fouls.  Common fouls are at the less extreme of the spectrum to technical  fouls being at the highest end of the spectrum. I have been to a lot of basketball games in my time and I have played quite a few basketball games. There's been a lot of times where it's been a pretty friendly atmosphere and good sportsmanship to where the game becomes like a "blood bath" between the teams. It's not just between the player's and the coach's. It's also with the fans too. I admit I have shared my frustrations with the refs and it really doesn't solve anything. The calls that they make can't be undone. Yelling and getting angry does nothing but put us in a bad mood. No one likes to be around an angry person am I right? It's more enjoyable to be around someone who is in a good mood. Ironically, I write this post in part to myself to give me advice to  stop letting anger and frustration control my love and passion for sports. 

There's been a major incident in the NBA Western Conference Finals between Draymond Green and Steven Adams, both of the Warriors and the Thunder. It's all been controversial where both sides are either satisfied or not. I am not going to go into the issue itself. If you want to read further on you can just google Draymond Green and Steven Adams kick. There also was a lot of word's spoken from opposing teams to each other in a negative way. Trash talk has become a thing of the NBA. I am certain though there will be time hopefully that trash talk won't be existent. It would be great for a sports society as a whole with athletes to go out there and do there best but show good sportsmanship to other players at the same time. Time will tell on this. 

I could go on and on about the other sports and the sportsmanship issues entailed in each of them but I won't. I will just leave it here and end my post stating to "Focus on the Good in the Individual and Not the Bad" in this case Individual would be replaced by Athlete. We have so many talented athletes in the world. Everyone is a person. We all make mistakes and everything obviously won't be perfect in terms of sportsmanship.  I know I have had made mistakes in sports and I have grown and learned from them.