Deviance in sports

On April 9, 2013 in my American Sport in the 21st Century class we discussed the topic of deviance in sports. According to Coakley's text on page 157, deviance occurs when a person's ideas, traits, or options are preserved by others to fall outside their normal range of acceptance in a society. During the lecture, we talked about America as a violent society. More people are in jail in the United States more than any other nation on earth, with about 22 million people in jail. The crime rate since 1960 has increased by 560%.

Examples of Deviance in Society

• Stealing
• Robbing a bank                                                              
• Using illegal drugs                                                        
• Violent crimes/ Murder/ Rape/ Battery

Examples of Deviance in Sports

• Fighting
• Bounty hunting
• Academic cheating                                                
• Performance enhancing drugs
• Gambling
• Illegal recruiting violations

My opinion: A lot of the reasons why we see deviance in sports in our society is because of the way that violence is publicised. Discussed during lecture, on average, a child watches a thousand acts of TV violence before they finish elementary school. In my opinion, video games hold so much violent content, and thats where a lot of children/teens learn these deviant acts. Some of these children/teens are ones who might grow up to be a professional athlete, and could someday chose to use these deviant acts for whatever reason may be all because they learned it from TV or a video game. One of the bigger things that bothers me about fighting in sports is the fact that in NHL they allow the athletes to engage in fighting and will only break up the fight if it goes to the ground. Young children are seeing this and might think that fighting is okay. Also, in MLB, if a batter charges the mound to attack the pitcher, you as a player on that team get fined if you don't come off the bench and fight someone. These are deviant acts that children learn because they are so widley broadcasted.



http://www.academic.marist.edu/mwwatch/spring03/articles/Sports/sportsfinal.html