Deviance in Sport

The presence of Deviant behavior in Sport

By: Brandon Akins

 

Deviance - an act that differs from the norm, especially behavior or attitudes that differ from acceptable social standards. This in recent years has been hard to determine if it is good or bad seeing the way society is shaping. On Page 157 Coakley says there are two forms of deviance: formal deviance, which involves violations of official rules and laws that are punished by official sanctions administered by people in positions of authority, and informal deviance, which involves violations of unwritten customs and shared understandings that are punished by unofficial sanctions administered by observers or peers. Since formal deviance is more relevant in today's society I will spend more time talking about that. On November 1st, 2012 in class we talked about how America has became a violent society and how it translates to the society of sports also. Violence in sports parallels the reality of violence in society as a whole; we see violent acts reported on T.V. every day on the news. We see it so much it begins to lose the element of surprise and we as a society begin to accept behavior of the sort and it almost becomes a norm.

 

 As you can see here in this video Cortland Finnegan the self-proclaimed dirtiest player in the NFL (#31 white), seemingly from the start of the play was looking to fight with Andre Johnson (#80 blue). If you keep watching it shows the previous

play where they got into a scuffle and Finnegan's helmet comes off.

As you watch the video you can make the connections to society, though it is not so to say acceptable people as consumers of sports love to see stuff like this. When you ask people their favorite thing about hockey more than not that person will say the fighting that takes place. To think there are people who actually go to hockey games to see their favorite players fight is kind of sad. Even more the sport allows them to do it is even sadder. Think about it if you took fighting out of hockey how many fans do you think will leave? Now my opinion might be basis because traditionally I am not a hockey fan, but from personal experiences this is one of the most attractive aspects of the sport. This is when I raise another point when things such as the video happen it is viral in minutes and everyone is watching/talking about it. Why are there never viral videos or conversations about doing the right thing or showing good sportsmanship or non-deviant behavior? The answer is quite simple; people do not find things that are good interesting and it is almost becoming a lost art. When you think about the most popular athletes they are always the egotistically very cocky dirty ones, because they are the most "interesting." 

Source: Saints Bounty

This past year the New Orleans Saints were involved in one of the biggest deviant scandals in sports history. To summarize what happen former Defensive Coordinator Gregg Williams would preach to his players to injure the opposing star players or attack players that were already injured coming into the game. It was basically a win at any cost scheme, he then later created a bounty system which would reward players for the hardest hit of the game or to injure the target player of that week. This essentially turned his players into hard hitting monsters and players were indeed hurt. He emphasized hard hits to the head and repeatedly preached "Fear brings Respect." Further details about this topic can be seen at "Saints bounty Scandal". To say this was the only occurrance of this in the NFL would in my eyes be a very wrong; it's just the only case that got caught. I don't really think you can justify wishing harm on another person but in football or any contact sport for that matter is taught in the light of its either hit or be hit. Which I believe coincides with society today, because we live in a world where there is a mentality of either stand up or be put down and that's on the physical, verbal, mental, emotional, and spiritual levels.

Now I'm no expert nor do I proclaim myself to be but as a consumer of sports and an active follower of sports I do not see deviance making its way out of sports, What do you think?