The Purity and Emotion of HS sports

February 2021

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Robert Frank has been arguing for many years that relative competition can be as excited to the fan as absolute levels of competitive skill. When I first heard this argument in the 1980s, I thought it was not quite right. Overtime, however, I have become more satisfied with Frank's argument as reflected in my own assessment of entertainment value.

Over the past 2 weeks I have been watching the HS playoffs in Northern VA. I have seen 3 games all decided by last second plays. At some objective level of talent, the NBA and NCAA would provide a high level of game. But during these last weeks of the HS season many of the players are playing organized basketball potentially for the last time and the passions run deep. These games provide great drama and the skill level is sufficiently high enough that the games reflect the beauty of the sport (its athleticism, its geometry, and its strategies).

There is a limit to Frank's argument. You wouldn't find a tennis match played by two novice players fun to watch no matter how evenly matched they were. In that case, none of the beauty of the sport would be conveyed. On the other hand, certain NBA games are dreadful to watch (I'd actually list the NBA All-Star game among these). The athleticism is there, but the passion is often absent. So there must be some trade-off that must be balanced between the competence of play, and the passion of play that makes Frank's thesis come to life. Passionless competence does not work and neither does incompetent but passion performance.

BTW, the HS where I work as an assistant coach (at the Freshman level) won 2 of the last second games, but lost 1 on a shot at the buzzer. The team advanced tonight with a 1 points win and will player tomorrow night for the opportunity to play in the Regional semi-finals which will actually be played at GMU's Patriot Center. Go RAMS!