Rishon Rishon

Sports objectives

Steven Den Beste answers a question about playing fair in sports. Specifically, how should a parent teach his children to play sports. He answers this question first by asking the parent what his objectives are:

Objective 1: Win as many games as possible. Nothing else matters.

If this is the objective, then Greg's question is easy to answer. You use whatever tactics are necessary to win. You instruct your players to play dirty whether the other team does or not. You encourage them to game the referees and teach them the fine points of doing so, and make them practice it.

Objective 2: Turn your kids into saints, who always act correctly irrespective of the consequences. Motives and choices are more important than results. The goal is to raise kids who never sin. (We'll call this "idealistic honor".)

Again, the answer to Greg's question becomes obvious. Tell your kids to not do those kinds of things, no matter whether the opponent does them or not. That will probably mean they'll lose more games, but winning and losing are unimportant. What's important is that they act correctly.

Objective 3: Teach the kids lessons about life so that they grow up to be honorable men who survive and prosper in a world where many are not honorable. (We'll call this "practical honor".)

Surprisingly (to me) Steven chooses Objective 2. Since I am a parent, I think about these kinds of questions. Here are my objectives (with respect to playing sports):

1. War is usually not the right model for viewing life. A transactional model is usually better: neither side should play unless both sides feel that they “win” something. In business this is called the win-win scenario, in economics it’s called a Pareto-optimal solution. Lesson: Look for the win-win scenario – if you can’t find it, walk away.

2. Don’t take things too seriously when they’re not. Lesson: Playing sports is not serious enough to merit cheating.

3. The truth will out – anyone who cheats will lose their reputation, even if they win the game. Lesson: Don’t cheat unless it’s the right thing to do. (Which it’s not, in sports.)

As Steven says, you won’t know what to do unless you know your objectives. I want to teach my kids to always remember their life objectives, and not to get caught up in the formal objectives of sports, or the transient objectives of their current circumstance – in other words, to keep things in perspective.