Does Contact Team Sports Promote Violence Off-The-Field?

Team sports are played worldwide, contribute to health benefits, build teamwork, and sportsmanship. However, with a record of sexual assault, domestic violence, injuries, amount of fouls, and number of penalties, it is easy to believe that contact team sports can promote violence on and off the field. Hockey, soccer, rugby, lacrosse, basketball and football are all team sports that incorporate sliding, tackling, and body checking. Contact team sports promote violence on-the-field but there is still question is if contact team sports promote violence off-the-field? In this essay I will be discussing the off-the-field violence that is seen in sport worldwide, as well as aspects of promotion of violence on-the-field.

It has been seen for years now that athletes train to win and be

dominant players, thus leading to successes. This can date back to the years when football was described as an essential tool for preparing young men for war; providing opportunities for physical combat, the desire for the battle, and collaboration of skills for a common goal (Kreager D.A, 2007). Contact sports are shaped around the belief that “winning is everything” and this creates pressure on the coaches and players to commit to this attitude to make their team, school, and community proud.

There are many different contact sports that promote violent behaviours on- and off-the-field. First, I will examine the effects of professional and elite

contact sport, circumstances where athletes have utilized their violent behaviours outside of the sport setting. Next, I will go into further detail about how on-the-field contact sports can relate to physical aggression, misbehaviours, and intentional injuries, thus influencing youth to delinquent behaviors off-the-field. Lastly, I will analyze the way in which contact team sports contribute to male violence behaviors which in turn promote hegemonic masculinity on and off the field. Although contact team sports can encourage a variety of positive outcomes and social interactions amongst players, there are social comparisons and antisocial behaviours embedded that can influence athletes to act violent on and off the field.
Athletes are seen to be strong, physical, aggressive players, in which they believe that the competition is a battle for excellence and there is an all cost motive to achieve the win. This is seen within many different aspects of professional sports as most involve forms of contact or physicality. Professional athletes demonstrate dominance, power, control and authority when they are playing at the professional level. This can often result to sudden outbursts of violence during the game, and thus these behaviours are also seen off the field as well. Simon, R. L., et al (2015), demonstrates incidents where professional athletes exercise aggressive and violent behaviours outside of their occupation. An example mentioned is Michal Vick, a star NFL quarterback who was suspended from the NFL for being accused for dog-fighting. There have been multiple records of violence off the field, accounts of law-breaking, gang violence, drug-ingesting, bet-placing, and fan animosity, are behaviours that prevalent in the major league sports. Pacman Joneses a former Tennessee Titans cornerback was none for going to strip clubs, several brushes with the law, and is part of an entourage of thugs who perform crime on innocent citizens. His behavior on and off the field was bad enough that the NFL commissioner suspended him for the entire 2007 season (Simon R.L. et al, 2015). These are just a few examples of professional athletes that have demonstrated acts of violence off the field. These aggressive behaviors that are used for domination on the field in a game should not be promoted outside of sport but there are indeed accounts where this is occurring.
Hockey has always been seen as a violent sport.

There have been many injuries and concussions caused by the aggressive contact that is highly noticed in major hockey leagues. There have been cases where fans, players and coaches have used built up aggression off the ice. Situations where one team is defeating another can escalate the behaviour of the fans, lead to brawls between fans. In Jeffery Nash’s (1981) article he points out the incidents that have taken place, he mentions “the “riot” that occurred at the end of an important high school came in eastern Massachusettes the night after the infamous North Stars vs. Bruins brawl that set a record of 406 minutes in penalties (p.229).” This display of aggression demonstrates how passionate the crowd can get when the team is promoting this type of violence on the ice. Hockey demonstrates different invasion tactics that requires defeating the opponents and winning the puck over at an all or nothing

cost.
The professional athletes express real emotions and genuine passion for the game, thus either spontaneously or intentionally causing violence on the ice. Fans are proud of the emotions that is being expressed by their favourite players or team, they like to watch fights, they’re exciting and require the attention of all players, coaches, officials, and of course the fans (Nash,1989). These fights are considered normal for hockey and are understood as “fighting with fists, not sticks, fighting generally takes place without gloves, on the ice, in the presence of the referees, and as a consequence of something that happened in the course of the game (Nash, 1989, p.234)”. The passionate reactions to the game gets the crowd rowdy as they experience anxiety for the teams, this adds feelings of excitement, frustration, fear and spontaneity to the game and can cause them to misbehave. The professionals use wrist shots and slap shots to shoot the puck hard and these skills are quickly developed in beginning hockey players as they want to succeed like the professionals. Studies demonstrates that kids look at professionals athletes as model figures and are aware of this violent behavior that they’re displaying, he says kids associate themselves to these athletes on an athletic basis (Nash, 1989). If the youth are looking at these professional athletes as role model figures, as they watch the games and see the aggressive behaviors they too express such behaviours and passions as well.
It has been seen that team contact sports promote violence on- the- field, as children grow into this athletic culture; they have been exposed to different violent acts throughout sport history. Is this what we want our future athletes to be developed into? Kreager D,A explains “physical aggression, competition, and violent behaviors on-the-field are encouraged throughout sport...By rewarding physical aggression with on-the-field success and increased prestige contact sports, are portrayed as both elevating athletes about their peers and increasing off-the-field violence toward perceived outsiders and “weaker” students (Kreager D.A, 2007 p.706)”. If future athletes believe this is what sport is about and learn this from a young age as they develop into athletes, then this can lead to further violence in their sporting careers. Although not all team contact sports promotes violence throughout the athletic career. Team contact sports can increase attachment to teammates, less likely to drop out of school, peers and coaches, builds commitment, and dedication yet there is still a high rate of antisocial behaviours closely related (Kreager D.A, 2007).
There is a negative stigma around contact sport participation as it leads to delinquent behaviors, brawling, assaults, and bullying. This style of violent behaviors is prominent when watching or reading professional athletes on televisions or newspapers (Fields, S, et al. 2010). This is the type of media coverage is promoted to the becoming athletes and interpreted as successful competition, as the professional athletes strive for domination. Growing athletes are applying the on-the-field violence and intimidation as a lesson for success and often features needed for the game, this can relay behaviours to the off-the-field goals and problem solving outside of sports. Often sports promote loyalty and commitment to team expectations which puts pressures on youth to conform to the expectations of the team. Curry (1998) mentions that peers promote violence against outsiders, thus building team cohesion and expressing masculine courage. Fields et, al. (2010) uses a great definition of youth violence as “youth violence occurring in a sporting context, which includes violence between individuals or groups at both organised and informal sporting activities (Fields et, al. 2010 p.32)”. Male athletes use aggressive insults as threats to other perceived lower status groups or nonathletic peers such as “pussy, and wimp” to promote power and group expectations. This form of destructive actions, superiority over others and aggression are produced in the sport culture and impose violence to all athletes. When sports target a mutual goal for excellence often factual inequalities are associated with winning or losing the game and increasing discrimination (Rosenberg. Pers. Comm. 2015) Children that often produce delinquent behaviors and aggressive attitudes generally get entered into contact sports thus in turn leading to an aggressive team or athlete.
There are hypermasculin features that are associated with team contact sports; it promotes violence as a conventional way of preserving respected masculine identities. Between professional and amateur sport, the main difference is the degree of physical contact between players. Aggression, domination, homophobia, sexism, racism and ruthless competition are all embedded in the value system of sport, where coaches and parents promote masculine identities. There have been cases of violent gang rapes in the form of team male bonding on campuses which have relations to sexism, insensitivity and aggression (Curry 1989). If the value system of sports can in turn promote power high and feeling privileged. We want youth to be knowledgeable, to build socially cognitive young men and women.