Sports and Religion

“I've tried 'em all, I really have, and the only church that truly feeds the soul, day in, day out, is the Church of Baseball.” (“Bull Durham”, 1988)

Sports fans are more than just spectators; they are active participants in the religion of sports. For fans and athletes alike, sports provide a fulfilling sense of identity and community through its rituals, symbols, and relics.

Years ago, my family set out on a road trip to see every Major League Baseball Stadium in the country. Each stadium had a unique vibe and they each had their own traditions. The Anaheim Angels have stuffed “rally monkeys” that the fans hold up and shake when they cheer. The Phoenix diamondbacks have rattlesnake shaped rattles that the fans shake to make noise and distract the other team. Entering the stadium was like entering a whole different realm. The outside world ceases to exist and all that matters are the two teams about to play each other. The ritual of games is like a break from the monotony of everyday life; it’s when the end of the circle of routine veers out to become an enriching spiral.

 There’s something special about going to see a game rather than watching one on TV. Both rituals have distinct characteristics and superstitions. I like to think of watching a game on TV to be like a prayer group, whereas going to a game is like going to a religious service. Sports are the organized religion to correspond with the human need for play. Sports allow for play to remain present in your life past the age where play stops being socially acceptable.

Sports are a neutral zone. We create rules and narratives in attempts to make it all fair. In theory, the team with the most skill and the best technique should always win. But because of chance occurrences and weird coincidences, that is not always the case. Sometimes the wind blows too strongly in one direction or someone accidentally trips, but we chalk these unpredictable events up to result of superstitions. If we do not wear the right socks on game day or watch the game with the right people, everything will fall apart and our team will lose. In these superstitions, we create mythologies and stronger connections to our teams and our favorite athletes.

In 2006, Johnny Damon was traded from the Boston Red Sox to the New York Yankees. When he was on the Red Sox, he was known for his rugged look, but when he switched to the Yankees they made him clean up. My friend’s dad was the one who cut Damon’s trademark hair off, and to this day my friend has a box of Johnny Damon’s hair. That box of old hair is much more than just that, though. That hair is a relic; a myth; a symbol.

Religion in Sports

People may watch sports because it gives them a sense of community or sense of belonging within their fan base.  You celebrate with them, you mourn with them and within this community you share similar traditions.  In terms of tradition, everyone knows the same chants, can sing the same songs, and wear the same colors.  For example, at a Boston Red Sox game everyone knows “Sweet Caroline” and every Notre Dame fan can sing their fight song at the end of every win.  This sense of tradition also helps breed superstition in which fans feel they can directly impact their team’s performance by the things they do, such as wearing the same pair of socks or sitting in the same seat every week.  The character in Bull Durham plays into this sense of community because she feels that by sleeping with players, she can directly influence their performance and this also may help play into her sense of community because she feels personally connected with the teams success. 

So whether it’s wearing the same socks, or sleeping with the players, superstition is a large part of sports.  Its not only fans, but the players as well, Michael Jordan wore his North Carolina Basketball shorts underneath his Chicago Bulls shorts every game (and apparently it worked out pretty well for him).  Fans’ superstition also expands into marketing campaigns, and companies appeal to the fans’ consumerist interests.  Campaigns such as “Be Like Mike” or “Bo Knows” capitalize on fans’ obsessions of sports icons, and attempt to sell products with player’s names on it.  Fans buy these products under the false illusions that the t-shirt or shoes they wear will somehow improve their performance and they will play like their favorite superstar.               

Sports Culture

Laderman define sports as a "ritual activity [that] inspires behaviors and motivations that express prevailing values and ideals as well as less ennobling, more notorious acts that subvert those very principles and demonstrates just what is at stake in play" (48). Similar to religion, rules in sports are reinforced and sometimes broken and changed to fit into modern ideologies. These rules in turn establishes a routine for both players and fans. Laderman stated how "every game is a ritual reminder and reaffirmation of rules and law, boundaries and prohibitions that will, of necessity, break down (52). Furthermore, sports offer a realm in which people get to lose themselves in a different world. Sporting events allow people to change their appearance for a couple of hours so they can be united with other people of the same interest. Thus, sports are a unification medium in which people who will usually have nothing in common can become best friends within a couple of hours by wearing the same symbols of uniforms and logos. That is why sports is a billon-dollar industry in establishing 'brands' in which "material value is given to athletes, owners, and corporations" (Laderman, 44). People are drawn to sports because "the game is predicted on familiar sights and sounds, movements and interactions" (53-54). They find comfort in knowing that they can expect certain aspects of sports (since it is structured), while there are also parts where they cannot predict, such as the outcome of the game. 

The analogous nature of sports culture and religion allows for the utilization of the sports in navigating theodicy. Sports games offer fans a guideline. Generally in every game, there will be a win and loss, good calls and bad calls. Sporting events offer a picture of the dynamic between good and evil but on a much smaller scale. As a result, sports fans are conditioned to accept injustices – from players who use steroids to referees who make the wrong call. They have a well-ingrained means of navigating perceived unfairness. Although the injustices fans face are far less severe than those in the real world, their experiences can still be applied to reality. Essentially, the dynamic between good, evil, and justice presents a guideline that can be utilized by the sports fan in both real world experiences and sporting events.

Sports and Religion

Sports and Religion

     In order to first understand ritual in sports, it is necessary to define what a ritual is. Rituals give bonding, while also granting freedom to a group of people in a shared context. In terms of sports, symbols play an important role in supporting ritual. For example, players go about their daily rituals in order to elevate the overarching symbol of their franchise. For example, every game for Michael Jordan, a “sports deity”, was an opportunity to partake in the rituals of basketball to both represent the symbol of the Bulls, and his own symbolic representation of the Jordan brand (Laderman 59).

            Sports themselves offer an alternative movement to religions that offers the opportunity for people to both religiously follow athletes and teams. For fans, sport creates “enjoyable diversions from daily routines, a model of order and coherence, and heroes to look up to and follow” (Laderman 47).  Within the context of Bull Durham, the character Susan Sarandon portrays describes her plight of trying to find a religion to follow, and eventually chooses baseball because “it is the only church that feeds the soul day in and day out”. For her, and many other fans, sports fulfill similar spiritual needs as traditional religion does by taking people out of the profane and bringing them into the sacred. In other cases, it can serve to bring order and healing. For example, after the September 11^th attacks the Mets played a very emotional game in which Mike Piazza hit a game clinching home run in New York. According to a widowed wife who attended the game: “when Mike hit that home run, the release of everyone around us was just incredible. We never thought there would be a light at the end of the tunnel” (Botte). This is also an example of how sports can work as a force of theodicy, as they bind “fans athletes and teams together around idols that are worshipped in ways that, for some, create shared experiences and memories as impressive and meaningful as any other sacred encounters in this life” (Laderman 62). This ritualization of sports brings together the entirety of humanity by taking the universally familiar aspect of play and giving it religious connotations that transcend everyday life.

http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/mets/9-11-family-forget-mets-piazza-article-1.1470645

Luis Serota, Eric Seiden, Eric Lintala

Campus Life: the Sacred & the Sporty Clothes

    In our jammed-packed lives, we’re practically running from one event to another. Many of us on campus are physically active as well, so it’s not uncommon in class to see people in sport’s clothes coming from the gym or about to hit the track. But how about during services?

     I asked a Jewish friend of mine if being religious shaped how she dressed. We agreed that as Jewish and Catholic students, we perhaps dressed more conservatively than most, especially during services.

     “But sometimes I wear sports clothes to service, because I simply don’t have time to change before,” Jane* said. And I agreed. Many other students, including myself, have shown up to services a tad sweaty. I’d say there’s at least one person in sportswear at our Sunday Mass. 

      “It’s something about the space too” Jane commented, “We have services in the Hub [a public event space on campus], and it’s not like going to Temple. Nor is the Chapel like going to Mass for you, I bet. Knowing that during concerts a cappella groups drink beer on that alter makes it, I don’t know, different.”

     And she was right. For me, the modest, white Protestant Chapel did not have the same amount of sacredness for me as my home parish with its kneelers, stained glass, and incense in the air.

     For Jane and I, the casual campus vibe and our busy, active lives pervade into our sacred space. The spaces for our services were also more casual than what we were used to, less traditional. Maybe that’s a reason why us students feel its ok to be sporty and worship: the buildings themselves are such a mix of the typical “college life” and the religious.

*name changed