in creating competitive team sports.
basketball
football
baseball
ice hockey
rowing
soccer
cricket
rugby
tennis
just off the top of my head. What’s with this penchant for inventing team sports ?
Wealth.
I guess that’s more of an answer to do with the success of the sports you mentioned than their invention, but I’ll stick with it.
Since when is tennis a team sport? Sure, there’s a “US Tennis Team,” but the matches are one-one-on or doubles, which is really stretching the meaning of “team.”
Also, are we sure that some of these sports don’t have roots in non-Anglo cultures?
Of the sports you list, soccer, cricket and rugby were invented in England before the beginning of the 20th Century and so probably count as “Anglo-Saxon” in origin (if the term means anything at all).
Rowing is fairly universal, I believe tennis was invented in France and the reamining four originate in North America (where they have more or less stayed), so I don’t think it is fair to describe them as being of Anglo-Saxon origin.
Well, my first thought was, “Pfui, what a silly proposition. People, and men especially [ :rolleyes: those goofy creatures so obsessed with statistics and winning ] have always had lots and lots of team sports.”
But you know what? I went looking for a list of the original Olympic games, and actually none of them looks like a team sport.
http://luna.cas.usf.edu/~murray/classes/ca/olympic-events.htm
Foot Races:
The Stadion
A middle distance race (the hippios?)
The race in armor
Torch race
Pentathlon Events
Long jump
Discus and javelin
The Pentathlon
Combat events
Wrestling
Pankration
Boxing
Equestrian Events
Four horse chariot race
Horse race
So, maybe it is an Anglo-Saxon thing, after all? I went and found a list of the Summer Olympics 2000 events (I’m leaving Winter Olympics events out of this 'cause I doubt if the ancient Greeks did much figure skating), so look and see how many of them are team sports.
The track relays would be team sports. Badminton. Baseball, basketball, and football. Team handball. Field hockey. Rowing. Softball. Synchronized swimming. Table tennis, if it was doubles. Tennis, ditto. Water polo. Volleyball. Yachting. Did I miss any?
My next thought would be, But is it an Anglo-Saxon thing, meaning British and American and possibly German (not sure by what the OP means by “Anglo-Saxon”), or is it just an American thing? How many of these team Olympic events were invented by Americans? Is it maybe that the Americans codify and make more competitive what the British invent?
http://www.dallasnews.com/sports_day/othersp/2012/events.htm
Olympic events (for the Summer Olympics)
05/05/99
Archery
Athletics (track and field)
Badminton
Baseball
Basketball
Boxing
Canoeing: Flatwater sprint, Slalom
Cycling: Track, road race, mountain biking
Equestrian: Jumping, dressage, three-day event
Fencing
Football
Gymnastics: Artistic, rhythmic
Team handball
Field hockey
Judo
Modern pentathlon
Rowing
Shooting
Softball
Swimming: Swimming, diving, synchronized swimming, water polo
Table tennis
Taekwondo
Tennis
Triathlon
Volleyball: Indoor, beach volleyball
Weightlifting
Wrestling: Freestyle, Greco-Roman
Yachting
say you have a class structured society
the lower classes outnumber the upper classes
the lower classes need their attention/agression directed somewhere other than at the upper classes.
have them compete against each other and reward the winners with useless trinkets. trophies, medals, stroke their egos.
don’t teach them accounting so they understand wealth accumulation.
when i was a sophomore in college, met a chinese kid from new york who told me that his kung fu master didn’t want to teach it to europeans because it would be turned into a SPORT.
Dal Timgar
Anglo saxon world domination will end soon with the thinnng ozone layer causing a skin cancer epidemic.