"Jocks" & "Nerds"

In class I mentioned my bad experiences with sport at high school - my absolute terror of sport - and tried to think through exactly what the anxiety was. The simple response is of course that I was bad at sport and hated being exposed as bad at sport and attracting the contempt of my classmates.

But the question gets pushed back a level: why was I bad at sport and what is it to be "bad at sport"? (nb. a lot of philosophy is simply the result of the application, and reapplication, of this whiny 5-year-old question: "But whyyyyy?")

At the time, I just took my "badness at sport", and the resulting social condemnation, as a given, as just the way things were. Looking back, I can see that this pessimistic attitude, this fear and loathing, was as much the cause of my badness of sport, and the disapproval of other players, as its effect. I was "bad at sport" mainly because I was a cloud of anxiety and negativity on the field - mainly because, in other words, all I did out there was think about myself.

And (reapplying the "but whyyyyyy?") I speculated in class that what made me so anxious was the particular risk-taking involved in sport compared to academic performance. In ordinary classes, I could "see" the right answer in my head and all I had to do was say it out loud, whereas in playing sport, even though you anticipate moves, they don't really exist until you act on them, you have to make a physical, public commitment that may or may not pay off. What I hated was the riskiness of the whole venture, the 'leap of faith' required, the lack of control. Even when you perform well physically, a playing field is essentially about being plunged into a set of variables you don't control, from both your own team and the opponent's. Or physical variables you can't control - like pain! (and if there was one thing I hated more than volleyball it was cross-country running - let's face it: I was a wimp!)

Of course, if your strength is in athletics rather than academics, then I can see how this dynamic could be reversed: some people just seem to "see" the ball, "see" the play, and it is as if they just translate into action something that's already worked out in their head, even though it's actually invented 'on the run'. And if you don't just "see" the answer in an academic context, then asking or answering a question is as public, risky, and anxiety-creating as catching a ball was for me.

There are lessons that I think apply across the board and are relevant to this class, given that we're trying to develop academic skills here.

1. Everyone has their "given" set of strengths and weaknesses from temperament, upbringing, training - the things that come easily, the things that don't come easily.
   
2. Letting fear or uncertainty get on top of you is "losing the game before it's started".
3. You have to practice to learn and get better.

The athletes among you will be familiar with these kinds of messages, they're common ones I think in sporting practice. And the same attitude pays off I think in academic work. Daniel H wrote in one of his posts that sport helps us not only to learn but to "learn how to learn": the progressive stages of getting to a goal are all 'laid out' in sport in a way that is sometimes not so clear in academic areas...

Anyway, it's the Championship game tomorrow, which we didn't get a chance to talk about in class this week: as an outsider, I was a bit sensitive to the sentimental pull of the Saints, but everyone I've mentioned this too goes "Yeah... NAHHHH." So, like any good citizen of Chicago, I'll be backing the Bears .