What Politics Can Learn From Sports
It is the middle of July. The baseball All Star game has been played. Wimbledon is over. The National Basketball Association playoffs are ending. Training camp for the National Football League has not yet started. It is a long way to the next election. Sports and politics generate the same loyalties, the same passions, the same competitiveness, the same will to win. The same agony. The same ecstasy. Strategies are continually modified to meet new challenges. The goal is the same for both. To excel. To take the top prize. The words of athletes, reflecting on their own journeys, on what it takes to succeed, don’t need much translating to apply also to politicians. The images are different, however, and catch our attention. It’s OK to borrow wisdom. Looking at the political process from a different perspective freshens thought. We have the time to listen.
“I think the biggest challenge for us is ourselves … How are we going to play? How hard are we going to play? Are we going to play for one another? Are we going to defend hard? Are we going to be able to rebound the ball? Are we going to be able to make the extra effort? Are we going to dive on the floor … It’s all about us. It’s all about us.”
Giannis Antetokounmpo, Milwaukee Bucks 2019 Most Valuable Player, National Basketball Association.
“He said sport is such an opportunity to unify, and he compared it to a team, where you have a common goal and you’re working together, but you all use your own personalities.”
Kyle Korver, professional basketball player after meeting with the Pope.
“I don’t forget those steps that it took for me to get here … which is the work, the discipline.”
Damian Lillard, basketball player for Portland Trailblazers
“Tweeting is not organizing … I don’t think they realize how much work is involved … It’s tedious. It’s every day … we’d have meetings at 4 a.m. after we finished playing.”
Billie Jean King, one of nine players who set up the women’s tour in 1973, commenting on current efforts to form a Professional Tennis Players Association.
“So many years just grinding it out … so many years just hoping for an opportunity like this.”
Michael McDowell, after winning the 2021 Daytona 500, his first win in 358 starts.
“You have to suffer. You can’t pretend to be in a final of Roland Garros [French Open] without suffering.”
Rafael Nadal, professional tennis player
“It’s not a rational or sensible thing to do … It’s something that comes from the heart, not from the head.”
Roz Savage, the English rower who in 2006 became the first women’s competitor to enter and finish the solo cross-Atlantic rowing race.
“Let me translate: Bottom of the ninth, two outs, down a run, two on. Do you want Verdugo up or Dalbec? I’ll take the former. If the deficit is three, I might lean Dalbec, depending on whom the pitcher is. But again, you get the idea. It’s situational. Both are OK – because you’ll ultimately need both.”
Tony Massarotti, baseball writer
“In the game’s early stages, he quickly passed out of a double-team, a decision that led to an open shot for a teammate. It was a small but significant moment: Booker seemed determined not to force much of anything. Instead, he was going to trust his teammates and bank on the slow, methodical process that had put the Suns in this position in the first place.”
New York Times story on Devin Booker and the Phoenix Suns
“It’s little things that make a big difference.”
Wayne Ferreira, professional tennis coach.
“Everything matters: size, length, shooting, passing, thinking, savvy. All of those things matter.”
Danny Ainge, General Manager, Boston Celtics
“We try to identify the strengths that any arm has, we try to make sure they understand their strengths … and maximize who they are … We really don’t try to make it any more complicated than that.”
General Manager Erik Neander, Tampa Bay Rays
“I know what we do here and how that buy-in is … being on board is important for a total team win.”
Rich Hill, pitcher for Tampa Bay Rays
“He’s not out there to prove people wrong. He’s out there to get people out.”
Alex Cora, Red Sox manager on relief pitcher Adam Ottavino.
“Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes the opponent is too good, sometimes you don’t play good. It depends. It’s tennis.”
Daniil Medvedev, professional tennis player.
“I represent the owners, but I’ve always believed that if you represent them well, you can represent the interests of players, fans and communities, too.”
David Stern, former commissioner of the National Basketball Association
“When this team is humble, this team is very, very dangerous. I feel we play at our best when we are humble.”
Giannis Antetokounmpo, after the Milwaukee Bucks went up 3-2 in this year’s NBA finals.
Practice. discipline, perseverance, attention to details. A strategy that takes account of your own strengths and weaknesses and your opponent’s strengths and weaknesses. Appreciating the necessity of team. All are essential to being competitive – both in sports and politics.
Douglas Kane is the author of "Our Politics: Reflections on Political Life" published in 2019 by Southern Illinois University Press [subscribe2]