Sportsmanship As A Social Norm In The World Of Sports

In the world of sports, sportsmanship is fundamental to playing any competitive sport. When people watch, or play a sport, they admire when an athlete shows true sportsmanship and respects the game. It happens after every game from the elementary level to the professional level, players shaking hand and congratulating each other for participating in the event. Sportsmanship help builds character and teaches young children to be humble. Sportsmanship has become a social norm in today’s society of sports as it goes wildly noticed when an athlete portrays acts that are not sportsmanlike. Professional athletes have become role models because of their acts of sportsmanship and respect towards others as children have looked up to them to set an example.

If we do break these rules, society will mock and ridicule us. Many think of social norms as bad for the individual as it becomes harder for an individual to express himself or herself and be who they want to be. I agree with the fact that social norms sometimes damage our individuality but I also believe that we need social norms to teach us behavior. Sportsmanship teaches us behavior and reinforces that behavior through scolding and people looking down on unsportsmanlike behavior. How can sportsmanship be bad if it teaches children and people to respect one another and play a sporting event with dignity? In Katie Rophe’s “Defense of Single Motherhood”, she discusses how the social norm of a family is taught throughout a child’s youth as they learn that a “normal” family should consist of a mom and a dad (2). She claims that these ideas are pushed on a child at an early age with “surprisingly aggressiveness” (1). I believe that instead of pushing certain values like what a normal family consist of, we should focus on values that make children into better people, like sportsmanship. It teaches children core values and moral ethics and I believe should undoubtedly be taught to children at a young