Be a sport and play to win
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Rugby is game loved by all, despite a handful incidents caused mainly due serious loyalty by certain groups and parties - File pic by Amila Gamage
Delivering the ceremonial welcome on assuming the highest judicial Office of the land, was former Rugby player and President of the Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL), Geoffrey Alagaratnam P.C. His Lordship, Chief Justice (CJ) Priyasath Dep P.C. also played Rugby among other sports.
The BASL President said, “On a personal note, I have been privy to Your Lordships sporting prowess, when I had the privilege of being Your Lordships teammate in the Colombo University Rugby team, where we learned to take both defeat and victory with equanimity. Your Lordship did excel in other sports too, such as athletics, having descended from a well-known sporting family of Deps. Your Lordship’s late father, a fine sportsman and a DIG in the Police, we are informed, was denied his due place as Inspector General of Police, a misfortune fortunately not visited on your Lordship.”
“In today’s fiercely competitive arena of sports, prompted by prestige and commercial considerations, where the whole spirit of healthy competition has been eroded, Your Lordship may take pride in the fact that, as teammates, we drank in the perennial values now seldom remembered that, it’s not whether you win or lose but how you played the game. Sports very much and being a part of education, should lend to the attitude, spirit and outlook in life of all true sportsmen. The attitude that it’s how we apply and endeavour more than the results that counts, is what sports teaches us. We seldom hear the phrase, “Be a Sport”. Such calls for nobility of conduct, whether in victory or defeat, should help in meeting life’s vicissitudes with grace?”
The BASL President was magnanimous in recognising the sporting background of CJ Dep. Both played the game while in school. The former at St. Peter’s and the latter at St. Joseph’s. The words of wisdom uttered by the BASL President, about the values of sport, healthy competition, being part of education, the attitude and the nobility of conduct, is great on paper.
The country we live in is replete with a phobia of nostalgic living and conspicuous buying. In the process, all what sports teaches has become secondary, when all you want is to win. The quote is more than apt, as we are in a time when poaching of players and vulgar behavior seems to be the order of the day on the Rugby field. It is a time when people seek legal remedy to justify the right to be rowdies. While others wish to push children to battle with those they cannot compete with and will ask the court to intervene. All to satisfy the whims and fancies of adults who don’t pause to think they are pushing these boys to play with unequals and expose children to injury.
Geoffrey’s words of wisdom, with a Ruggerite CJ in office, should prick the minds of many who seek to make professionals out of schoolchildren, while prostituting the phrase “Be a Sport”. I use the word prostituting to mean degrading talent for money or, misusing something for gain”. The game, at present, involves both degrading talent for money and misuse for gain.
Most schools in the Rugby league are in the habit of poaching boys from less affluent schools thus hampering those schools in continuing a sport. It is not uncommon to see players changing clubs for a purse; displaying neither the belonging nor a passion. We find fights erupting on the playing field, as some imports don’t understand the values built over the years.
It was not funny, when I was told that a school official who went to inspect ground suitability, wanted to see the toilets in the players’ dressing room. The reason given was to check whether the facility for human waste disposal is good enough to be used by the son of a Minister. This is what should be called poppycock and, or, trying to suck even when the Minister may not have been aware of the stupid inspection.
This type of joke comes apart, as I was privileged to meet a young flamboyant Minister seated by the corner flag during the Royal vs Peter’s match, while the loquacious man unable to muster adequate votes, sitting among the VIPs.
At the Trinity vs Zahira match, there was this Senior Minister and party high flyer, an old boy of Trinity, jostling with the crowd and getting squashed without his security, when the rain broke down.
While some Ministers seem humble, it is a pity that, those who should follow the words of Alagaratnam, being in education, are trying to bend so much to see whether a seat in the toilet is fit for an offspring.
The so called spirit of healthy participation is compromised when parents make statements under the cover of exalted Rugby office. If the relative age effect was applied, could the product of his sensation be on the field, if age restriction of world Rugby is enforced. You talk and pamper that a red card was not issued, but current events indicate that the innocents have seen the red card. The problem is that, what is good for the goose may not be good for the gander. If you sit pompously and deny all means, including citing officers to stamp dangerous play, then you are playing with children. Just as much we like to run to the bastion of the legal framework, why not go to courts and cite child abuse.
In every aspect, the game is being taken to the cleaners, by the mongrels who have neither shame nor remorse, for having brought the game into disrepute and fined heavily by the governing body. May I be permitted to ask them, “Are your parents married”? or “Does your mother bark”?, as they provide support to rowdies by providing documents. This too, is worth probing, as they still sit and pontificate while an innocuous government looks on.
That is the problem in the sport that is loved by all including those in high office. The highest in justice in the land has played the game, and still talk of values and the ethos. Politicians are seen at Rugby matches, while for most in other sports, including Cricket, their second love is Rugby. The barking lunatic continues to spoil the cake, while the crowds throng school games with or without a tournament rule book.
“The attitude that, it’s how we apply and endeavour, more than the results that counts, are what sports teaches us”. Sorry Geoffrey, I think it needs correction that the attitude and money bags prevent us from understanding what sports teaches us.
Vimal Perera is a former Rugby Referee, coach and Accredited Referees Evaluator IRBÂ Â Â