Can Metacom show where masturbation has been a competitive endevour?
I can just about see it. Welcome to tonights PML (professional masturbation league) contest between the Baton Rouge Bishop Batters and the Rochester Rocket Polishers here on the Playboy channel.
Somebody I work with defines a sport has having one or both of the following:
Therefore:
Bowling, golf, darts, diving, shot put, marching bands are not sports.
Let the debate continue.
I was in band in high school and we went to at least four and as many as seven competitions annually. We practiced as much or more than the football team did and had legions of boosters and parents who followed our competitive exploits just as closely as the football fans. I loved it and would do it all again in a second, but no, I really never considered it a “sport” because it was more about aesthetics than athletics. And that was just fine by me. Just because it’s not a sport doesn’t demean it in the slightest in my eyes or in the eyes of the participants and competitors.
By the way, my high school band was very good when I was there fourteen years ago and has continued to be good. They always make a very strong showing at competitions in one of the toughest leagues in the country (Middle Tennessee). The football team, on the other hand, has always sucked. My mother told me they are currently working on their fourth straight season without a win.
Glad to :).
Remember at the end of Metroid, after you kill the Mother Brain? You’re standing in all that goopy acid, and Metroids are attacking you while pipes in the walls shoot languid explosive cheerios at you, and finally you batter down the force field protecting Mother Brain and kill her dead.
Remember what happens next?
That’s right: the self-destruct sequence initiates, and you’ve got five minutes to escape. And what appears in the corner of the screen?
That’s right – a countdown clock!
I never knew playing Nintendo was a sport before.
For that matter, I have an alarm clock by my bed; is sleeping now a sport? What about microwaving dinner?
Methinks that definition needs refinement.
Daniel
It certainly is. Didn’t you ever see The Wizard?
My roommate certainly seems to think so. Sometimes he’ll save all his sleep for the weekend, then go for a 30 hour marathon. I can’t help but feel outclassed.
I don’t know if it’s a sport but it teaches you more about teamwork than any “real” sport does.
And, therefore, chess and “quiz bowl”-type activities are. I knew I should have lettered! 
This whole discussion should probably be framed around the concept of a continuum of sport. For convenience, I’ll place real sports at the top and non-sport in competitive activities at the bottom.
Everything in between would have some elements or aspects of sports but not enough to qualify as a real sport (probably the top one third of the list).
Real Sports (involving all or some of: balls/pucks, fields/arenas, competition, offense/defense, clocks/time periods, scores/points/runs, aerobic/heart rate increase, music only for timeouts, big-breasted cheerleaders, rabid fans, helmets/jockstraps/cups, mascots, beer, tailgating, ESPN coverage, endorsement deals, video games based on it)
CONTINUUM OF SPORT
<begin>
NON-Sport Activities
<end>
I would say that a sport must be an athletic endevor with an interactive oppenent and a an objective “point” based scoring system to determine a winner or a loser. In this defenition marching band is NOT a sport since there is no objective way to award points.
The more important question is: Is trombone a “real” instrument?
I just don’t see any reason to have such a restrictive definition of sport, inasmuch as it doesn’t match the commonly-held usage of the word.
Most folks include running the 500-meter dash as a sport, but the “interactive” definition excludes all races from being sports.
I’d much prefer an inclusive definition. Something along the lines of “a physically exerting activity done in competition with others” might work.
Daniel
A-fucking-men
The word “interactive” does include racing, during a race your actions affect your oppenent. If you see your oppenent catching up with you, you run faster. I would say however that solo running or time trials are not sports.
My high school state marching competition did have a points-based scoring system. Each band started off with a score of 100 points. The judges took off a certain number of points for mistakes that they saw–for instance, 5 points for someone being out of step or alignment, 10 points if someone dropped a flag or instrument, 10 points for tuning problems…you get the idea. Then the judges combined their scores and they were averaged. Granted, this is not a completely objective scoring system–one judge may prefer one band’s style over another and decide to award more points. But there are Olympic sports which are judged very similarly–diving, gymnastics, ice skating, etc.
I think that the “point” scoring must be completely objective. I will easily concede that diving, gymnastics, ice skating, or any other physical activities that are jugded on aesthetic values are NOT sports. In a sport it doesn’t matter how well or beautifully something is done in order to obtain a “point”. If the stated objective needed to get a “point” is completed, the “point” is awarded.
interficio, WHY do you suggest we define sport this way? Given that it’s not how the word is commonly used, what benefit do we see from the changed definition?
Daniel
interficio, is there any sport which is truly 100% objective all of the time?
In football, let’s say a team scores a touchdown, but it is very difficult to tell whether or not the receiver was still in bounds when he caught the ball. Even when the catch is seen from every angle it can still be diffcult to judge. That’s what umpires are for, and most competitive team sports have them. Most sports involve human judgment calls in some instances, and therefore they are not going to be completely objective all the time.
i was justing respong to the request that someone define sport, that is all. As it is right now, the definition of sport is very flexible and almost any activity can fall under that umbrella. I was simply attempting to provide a concise definition. I would disagree that the definition I gave is so vert different from the comman usage of the word. Most people would agree that basketball is a sport while chess or marching band is not. The difficulty arises in making a definition that can consistently explain why a certain activity is or is not a “sport”. I think a lot of the trouble is that people seem to place a degree of value on sport that I am not implying. Marching Band is NOT a sport, but is it any less an activity than football? No, they are seperate entiies. Conferring the title of sport on someting is not adding or subtracting value from it.
I figured this would come up. In football the scoring is objective: i.e if you cross the plane you get a touchdown. The trouble arises in not deciding whether you get points for doing this or how many points you get from doing this. The question is whether you completed the specified objective goal are not. This is different from ice skating and diving because you do not get points for accomplishing objective goals.
Obviously ice skating is judged more subjectively than football. What I’m arguing is that in most sports, human judgment comes into play whether we like it or not. Sometimes umpires make seemingly unfair calls during a play. Sometimes skating judges award more points to the skater who fell on his ass than they do to the skater who didn’t. You seem to be saying that the definition of a true “sport” involves a completely objective scoring system. I disagree.