Is That Even a Sport?
I have been told that golf, racing and (recently) MMA are not sports. Have you ever had a similar argument with a friend over what actually makes an activity a sport? It gets frustrating because for the most part it comes down to perspective. I have done some looking into this and have come up with an answer.
The answer is that both people are correct. By modern definition, a sport is an “athletic activity requiring skill or physical prowess” (www.dictionary.com). Most people can argue that golfers are not required to be world-class athletes. However, there is great skill and physical prowess required to hit a golf ball properly.
From many naysayers’ point of view, a sport is an activity requiring you to work up a sweat or one engaging in physical contact. If this is the case, tennis, racing and (arguably) baseball are not sports because there is little to no physical contact. Although, all of these activities require the practitioner to be in shape to play well and all require skill.
This argument requires me to bring out my inner geek and go back to the word in which ’sport’ originated from, disport. This word means “to divert or amuse oneself” (www.dictionary.com). By this definition just about anything can be considered a sport and could even make a case for hunting, fishing, darts, billiards, etc.
The simple breakdown of definitions adds confusion and leaves much to opinion. This is why there is much to debate about in the eyes of sports fans and fanatics alike. A simple fix would be to sub-catagorize each. You have full contact sports like football, hockey, MMA, etc. However, this will lead into debates over what a true full-contact sport is. Truthfully, we have to agree to disagree or engage in all of the routine trash talk that true fans enjoy.
I want to close by addressing the person who said MMA isn’t a sport. MMA meets every criteria for a sport. In fact, I would love to have many other athletes take an elbow to the head and continue on as if it didn’t happen.

There is a sporting competition unlike any other. It features some of the best-conditioned athletes in the world. Participants come from all over the world to compete in this event, held twice a year in Japan. It is among the most thrilling spectacles of strength, speed, and endurance ever displayed.
#3 Denver Broncos – The Broncos team that takes the field this fall will faintly resemble the team that went 8-8 and missed the playoffs last year. They had a furiously busy offseason, easily the biggest movers this year. Denver severed ties with their dramatically unhappy QB and signed Kyle Orton and Chris Simms to compete for the chance to replace him. They picked up the highly underrated running back Corell Buckhalter and added the proven leadership of Brian Dawkins on defense. The Broncos also grabbed RB Knowshon Moreno and DE/LB Robert Ayers with their two first round draft picks this year. Veterans LaMont Jordan and Jabar Gaffney joined the team from New England. There’s even more, but those are the moves most likely to have an impact in 2009. If they can pull it all together, this could be a team to be reckoned with this year.
The defensive lineman for the Patriots, Vince Wilfork, showed up at the Patriots team charity golf tournament, which is a little strange seeing as he has not had his contract renewed as of this date.
A month or so back, I wrote a post here about the triumphant return of Major League Baseball and the wonky statistics that we see in the first few weeks of the season. Now that the 2009 season is one-quarter of the way through, I thought it might be fun to check in on the statistics that I quoted here on April 21st.
“Ha ha, made you flinch.” I used to hate when people would pretend to hit me and then say that. What I didn’t realize is that they were teaching me a valuable lesson in life. Not to react, rather to respond.
We are going through a tough time in our history. The economy, a world-wide swine flu scare, wars on numerous fronts…you name it. All of these things increase our stress levels big time. However, before we turn to the bottle, martials arts may be able to help.
In a sad commentary on just how much I’ve missed NFL Football, I spent a good portion of my weekend watching the NFL draft. Draft weekend is the time when the NFL teams choose the best eligible college players to join the ranks of professional football. The ongoing explosion of salaries has changed the shape of the draft significantly from what it once was.
