From the Easy Chair

Sports

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Conversations, Panels and Sermons

Lesson: 154-214

Genre: Speech

Track:

Dictation Name: RR161DB194

Year: 1980s and 1990s

Dr. R. J. Rushdoony, RR161DB194, Sports, from the Easy Chair, excellent colloquies on various subjects.

[ Rushdoony ] This is R. J. Rushdoony, Easy Chair number 304, December the sixth, 1993.

This evening Otto Scott, Douglas Murray, Mark Rushdoony, John Upton and I will discuss sports.

Now the subject of sports is an interesting one. There is not as much written on it as there should be, although there are some interesting histories. We too often think of the subject in a purely modern term, in a purely modern perspective. But sports over the centuries have varied very greatly from age to age and from culture to culture and from race to race. Sports have most of the time been very brutal. There was a time, ostensibly, when football was played with somebody’s head who had just been killed and during the course of the game you might be killed yourself.

The character of sports varied also over the centuries depending on who you were. We can think immediately of something still contemporary, fox hunts. These have been the privilege of the upper class, tournaments and that sort of thing. The commoners were not even allowed possession of a sword so that certain types of activities that were considered sporting were restricted to a class. Now boxing for a while in England was the privilege of the nobility. The people were paid to fight, bare knuckles fighting, fought for 60 or 100 rounds until one of them could not longer get up. It was exceedingly brutal. It was finally barred.

When it revived it was because the middle class entered into the area of sports. And the middle class in the Victorian era introduced a new concept into the world of sports, fair play. And they turned the word sport from something that was almost synonymous with mayhem, murder, into something that called for fair play. And boxing, as they revived it—although it was not the main center of their attention—had to be fought under rules. No hitting below the belt. None of the old fashioned eye gouging, biting off ears and that sort of thing that had once marked boxing.

The Victorian middle class with its evangelical faith and its insistence on fair play changed sporting events.

It is interesting that the same time they were creating such institutions as the society for the prevention of the cruelty to animals. They did not regard cruelty as sporting. And you have to remember that animals were used also for sporting purposes prior to the entrance of the middle classes. You had dog fights. You had bear baiting and a variety of things where animals were very brutally used as a part of what was supposedly a sporting event.

Well, I think this is important for us to know. It was the Protestant middle class that created the idea of being a good sport and a fair play. Now since the 50s, the end of the 50s, we have seen something develop that, for example, Otto and I never knew when we were young. When two boys became angry they would start fighting and everybody would form a circle around them until the fight ended. No one intervened unless, I recall one occasion, when one of the fighters was being grossly unfair, unsporting and so they broke it up immediately and ticked him off, everybody shouting at him.

But now it is dangerous to fight someone because his friends can pile up on you. At least once instance where I had personal acquaintance they broke the boy’s ankle by holding him and smashing on him with ... on his ankle with their boots. So with the decline of a strong Christian emphasis, sports have ... turned again into a growing brutality.

With that general introduction, John, what kind of introduction would you like to make to the subject generally?

[ Upton ] Well, some people say that sports is a metaphor for life. And in playing sports I... I guess there is some merit to that because sometimes you have to overcome fear if a 300 pound man lines up in front of you and it is your job to knock him down, you have to overcome your fear. You have to overcome fatigue when you are tired. It helps you use your ... your mental faculties, because when you are tired you start to get sloppy. It helps you deal with pressure, because if you know that your team is going to lose if you don’t make a tackle then you are going to have the added pressure of making that tackle.

On the other hand, I don’t... I used to think it was great that I could hit somebody so hard it would knock them out. And today, being 37, I don’t think that is a very good quality anymore. And ...and finally being a former football player, my son who is eight years old and who is very... who doesn’t have a body like mine, he is very slender. He said, “Dad, I want to play football just like you did.” And I... and I said, “Johnny, the only thing that I would like to see you be if you are football player is a punter, because that is the least injury prone position.”

So I am really torn about sports. It... it ... sometimes it can teach you some things you can use later in life, but I think as men’s faith declines their interest in sports accelerates because they become instead of participants they ... they become viewers and that is what we have got today. We have a lot of people that are watching the metaphor of life, rather than participating in it. And sports encourages that.

[ Rushdoony ] Otto?

[ Scott ] Well, there... there seems to be a... a widespread feeling in the United States among the men that it is very manly to watch sports and I have never been able to follow that. I don’t see anything manly about sitting on your rump watching other men play.

[ Upton ] That is right.

[ Scott ] And I don't see any connection between an interest in sports and virility. I remember when I was a boy, of course, I... I wanted to play baseball very badly, but my eyes weren’t good enough. By the time I knew where the ball was, it was past me. But I tried and... and, of course, I had played in sand lot pick up teams. We used to make our own team and we were free in those days. We ... we made up our own ball team and our own everything. There were no adults around. So we had a natural pecking order. There was nobody to stop us from having a fight if we wanted to have a fight. But, as Rush points out, it was a fair fight.

The ... when I was about 12 or so it suddenly dawned on me that the baseball players that I ... I used to trade baseball cards and all the rest, that the baseball players were doing this for money. And I immediately lost interest, absolute total lost interest. I would still watch the World Series, but that is about all that remains of my interest in baseball.

What Rush said, though, intrigued me on the whole question of others piling in. I hadn't thought about that, but I did... I did become aware of the fact that or early on we knew that if a kid pulled a knife that he was a coward and that... it was a great sign of fear. You had to be ... you had to be careful of a coward. You had to be careful of a guy making a fellow too... too afraid, because then he might do something dangerous. And that , of course, I learned later on when I was roaming, when I was on the bum, when I was riding box cars and so forth.

One of the things that saved me in a way in some very rough places and times was the fact that I had pretty good manners. And good manners had a way of holding danger at bay. It was particularly with people who could get very, very angry on very, very small grounds who were super sensitive to even the slightest implication, even the shadow of a shadow of an implication they would kill you, because their position in life was such that they had no respect from the community and therefore they were, oh, practically like animals wandering around.

But something that Rush said about piling on brought up the thought that what we are seeing now is racial violence. And most of the racial violence is against white people and this is one of the great secrets of the United States because nobody wants to talk about it.

[ Rushdoony ] Douglas?

[ Murray ] I was going to ask Otto. Did the Greeks consider the decathlon a sports?

[ Scott ] I believe they did.

[ Rushdoony ] They were sports of a religious character. They had a relationship to the gods. It was an exaltation of things physical, of bodily powers. And great attainment made you a hero in any field and a hero was first leg up to being a god. So we have totally divorced the religious connotation of the word hero. But it had an {?} thoroughly religious connotation.

[ Scott ] That was true for the Romans, too.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] In the Roman games began with the funeral of ... well, in commemoration of fallen warriors. At the funeral of Junius Brutus, about 500 BC the games were a religious exercise and they were sacrificed.

[ Rushdoony ] There were human sacrifices and one of the gladiators fought or when they had thousands of captives fight in the arena sometimes for days until they were all dead.

[ Scott ] It was a human sacrifice...

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] And it was a religious one.

[ Rushdoony ] The religious sacrifice of human beings.

[ Scott ] The sacrifice being... and the first they killed them. Then the sacrifice began when there were too many to kill and they were told to kill each other. And to an extent we see what would you call it? Distortions of this idea in the football field. Now those fellows are sacrifices, not very many of them stay healthy very long. I mean, they are ... they are turning out cripples. And there is very little sport left as far as I can see in the Victorian sense in the modern football game. This is a blood sport in which they are using people.

[ Murray ] ... because they are injured before they even get out of high school.

[ Rushdoony ] That is why Ford Schwartz, friend of Chalcedon, who played football in his university days in London feels that it is a non Christian sport because of the extent of injuries and the number of people he knows who are maimed for life, bedridden, totally who are still young. And he himself was in a wheelchair for a few years and is now getting around quite well, but he will always be handicapped to a degree.

Mark?

[ M Rushdoony ] Well, a couple of things turned me off to... to being in sports. When I was a kid I got very excited about sports. I was a typical kid who was a sports fan. I got upset if my team lost. And as.... as I got older I decided that was an awful waste of energy, that I really couldn’t enjoy sports if I was upset because my team lost. There was obviously no pleasure in the whole thing. And I ... and I... I ... just... I stopped... I eventually came to the conclusion that usually you end up a loser, even if your team goes to the World Series and loses in seven games, you have lost. So virtually every sports fan in the country ends up a loser and frustrated. So I decided it was best not to get too excited about it. And I found... so I still watch the World Series and if the Giants happen to be in it, I slowly weaned myself off of Los Angeles teams, though I ... I can root for the 49ers and the Giants. But if they lose in seven games in the World Series it is big deal. It is too bad. Same thing with 49ers. I can pull for a team.

But even often when I am not pulling for a team, I can enjoy it more because if a team... if... if, for instance is a, you know, two or three touchdown underdog I can pull for them. And I... I... I... in some ways you enjoy it more if you are not a fanatic.

A second thing that turned me off to being overly interested in sports was every major city that has a sports franchise has a sports talk show. And the people who call into these shows you see that they are consumed with sports.

[ Upton ] Well, they don’t have a life.

[ M Rushdoony ] Yeah, they... they don’t.

[multiple voices]

[ M Rushdoony ] Oh, a perfect example...

[ Scott ] Strange types, really...

[ M Rushdoony ] ... is when the.. the Oakland Raiders moved to Los Angeles that was about... about a decade ago. We...

[multiple voices].

[ Murray ] A year long...

[ M Rushdoony ] But there are still people who call in to the San Francisco sports talk stations and want to talk about the Raiders. And that is... it dominates their lives. It is our team. They are our team.

[ Scott ] Can I tell a joke?

[ M Rushdoony ] If it is...

[multiple voices]

[ Upton ] As long as you don’t say ass.

[ Scott ] A... you said it. The... three fellows from San Diego went to heaven and Peter said, “Well, heaven now, of course, has been... we... we have streamlined and we have I Q tests and things like that. So we find that if we put people of similar I Q together they... they strike up a good friendships and we... we just do this to make it easy for everyone.”

And to the first man he said, “What is your I Q?” And, of course the fellow... on earth. And the fellow, of course, being in heaven had to tell the truth and said it was 130.

He said, “Well, that is fine. We have got some good businessmen over here would be very happy with your company.”

And the next one was even higher so he was sent to a philosophic group. The third one said, 110. He said, “Hey, boy, how are the Padres doing?”

[ Murray ] What do you think about the ... the proposition of new sport versus old sport? Pick, for instance, bull fighting seems to be a remnant of old sport of man is pitted against animal. And today you have man against man very evenly matched. I mean football players are scrutinized down to the pound and the ... how fast they can cover 100 yards, how many seconds. I mean they are very, very evenly matched. I mean they get down to, you know, motivation but physical size and speed and so forth is pretty well matched. And that seems to be the ... the ... the axis of new sport. We don’t have too many old sport left other than bull fighting and man against beast.

[ Scott ] I could never understand Hemingway’s fascination with bull fighting.

[ Rushdoony ] I think it was in... in part an affectation. Perhaps I am doing him in an injustice.

[ Scott ] Well, the Spaniards said everything that could be said about bull fighting through the years. And they... they, of course are the great writers and most writers... most people who read only English were really up against it. We don’t know how much Hemingway took from the Spanish writers.

[ Rushdoony ] Well, there is an aspect to sports that I think needs to be mentioned, coaches.

[ Murray ] Oh.

[ Rushdoony ] They will sacrifice a boy or a young man for victory to enhance their particular record. And I know that in high school and football I sprained my ankle so badly once that I couldn’t stand on it. Coach taped it up so tightly that I couldn’t feel anything and expected me to go back and play and I refused. I wouldn’t play until two weeks later when taped up it was bearable. He never forgave me for that. And I despised him from there on out. And I began to notice how many others he did that to.

Well, I have talked to a lot of high school and college athletes since then who have told me that it only gets worse the higher up you are in sporting events. The coaches are monsters of a particular variety.

What would you say to that, John?

[ Upton ] Well, I had a... my brother ruined my senior year in high school because he beat up my football coach in the summer time and I ... I worked for three years very hard to train to... my goal was to be a high school all American. And I had a shot at it, but you need your coach’s help, and my brother who is larger than I am and meaner than I am did not want to be abused by my coach and my coach started to shove him and my bother said, “If you lift your hand one more time, I am going to... I am going to knock you out.” And the coach went to shove him again and my bother knocked him out and broke his nose. And that ... and all I could see was my coach walking in with a broken nose and looking at me and ... and I just knew it was all over. And what that did to me. I was one of the best players on the team. I was the only player that got a scholarship to play football in college. He wouldn’t start me. He would let one... he would let a player play ... start the game one play and then he would take him out and he would put me in. So coaches can be barbarous, but if you want to see real foretaste of hell go to a soccer game where you have third graders playing. You... there you will see barbarous... these parents who... who don’t have a life either or who are frustrated jocks are yelling and screaming at these poor little second graders. I didn't start sports until I was in the fifth or sixth grade. These poor little kids have so much pressure on them.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Upton ] And they have these frustrated jocks that are never made, that are their coaches yelling and screaming at them saying, “You have got to win. You have got to win.” And it is... it takes all the joy out of the game.

[ Scott ] It sounds to me as though they have destroyed childhood in one form or another.

[ Murray ] They had a little league. Wasn’t there an incident recently where a dispute at a playground at some little league game, a pop Warner game where somebody got shot?

[ Scott ] Oh, I can believe it. We... we were free to play or not to play and there were no adults around and we did lots of things which as I look back on it would be absolutely unbelievable today. We had B B gun wars at one point. We had... we had guns and we have... we have fought B B gun wars.

We played cowboys and Indians. I remember once we tied ... we actually captured a fellow and tied him to a tree and then forgot about him. And ... and later on they had a search party out and we were all afraid to say where he was. They finally found him and he kept... he kept quiet, too. He was a good kid.

[ Murray ] Yeah.

[multiple voices]

[ Rushdoony ] You know, I had the similar experience of my high school football coach. He was so angry with me for refusing to play with an ankle I could hardly stand on that when I went back and was able to practice and play he called off last name except left tackle which I played and he turned around and growled out my name under his breath so I really didn’t hear. He wanted to jump me, but somebody nudged me and so I ran out. But he never treated me fairly after that.

[ Upton ] Well, yeah, I think the fact that we are all much more animated right at this moment about talking about sports kind of gives the importance of... that sports can play in your life if it is properly defined and... and applied and if it is the... you know, the right sense if you don’t go overboard with sports.

[ Scott ] Well, the sports changed for me when I stopped being interested in baseball and after I left home. I got involved with different kinds of games. I got involved in poker. And you might say head games which were much more interesting, much more interesting. I mean, we never stopped playing games, really. And it is always interesting. It is especially interesting, I think, if you are ... if you get... if you become a writer to watch the games that go on. And I didn’t read the book that a psychologist wrote Games People Play but I thought the title was... was a valid one because people do play games.

[ Murray ] Well, there is different cultural approaches to sports. I... you know, the... the approach that I got when I was a kid was from my father who was... he came from Canada and had the English influence and, you know, you would hear all of these stories about win at any cost football and so forth and, you know, I asked my dad about that and ... and he recited to me it matters not whether you win or lose, but how you play the game. And there is... there is this sense... by the time... when you get through with the game if your honor is in tact, then you are a winner. And that was the bottom line as far as he was concerned.

[ Rushdoony ] Well it is interesting, too, nobody has made a study of this to my knowledge. The differences between countries in the sports that they enjoy. I was very taken by the fact. I don’t know the explanation and none was given in a history of sports that I read recently, that the English have always loved boxing. Perhaps in the last decade or so they have lost interest, but it used to be highly popular, but not in Scotland. Scotland produced one boxer of note in the last 100 or 150 years and he did most of his boxing in England because Scotland didn’t show much interest in boxing.

[ Scott ] Well, it used to be that we had good boxing here I would say through the 20s, part of the 30s. I don’t regard it anymore at all. I don’t... I don’t pay any attention to it although I took boxing lessons at one point. The ... I hate to say it, but I don’t trust the box... I don't trust the game anymore. I don’t think it is fair. It is... it is not honestly conducted. Let’s put it that way. So therefore there is not... there is little point in watching it and the ones that it have seen have not been very skilful.

[ Murray ] Well, your nose is still straight, Otto, so you must have been good at it.

[ Scott ] It is just a little... a little... a little injury here {?} a bit.

[ Rushdoony ] There is another area of sports that we have not considered. There were varieties of games that were played some years ago which perhaps still exist in certain places, but no longer are as important. For example, when I was in high school whether you were at school or it was summer vacation there usually would be a group of boys who in the evening went to the school grounds to play handball. And it was very popular. These have tended to disappear.

[ Scott ] They... they... lingered on. I think they seem to leave with the 30s, didn’t they?’

[ Rushdoony ] I am...

[ Scott ] Because we all... we all played that...

[ Rushdoony ] I think so.

[ Scott ] We all played handball.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] So...

[ Rushdoony ] So the school handball courts usually were full in the evenings.

[ Scott ] That is right.

[ Rushdoony ] And there was a great deal of pleasure in playing it. And some were highly skilled.

[ Murray ] One of the causalities of crime.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes. Now the more commercial sports....

[ Scott ] How... how come casualty of crime? What do you mean?

[ Murray ] Kids are afraid to. The parents don’t want to let their kids go out and play ground in the evening and...

[ Scott ] Oh.

[ Rushdoony ] Oh, yes.

[ Murray ] And the kids themselves are terrified of it.

[ Scott ] Is that so?

[ Murray ] Sure.

[ Scott ] What happens?

[ M Rushdoony ] Well there... just recently, a few days ago they were filming some kind of a ... a commercial of some kind in a... in a... in a park and there was a shooting and when... in the middle of their filming of ... of a commercial.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ M Rushdoony ] They are not safe places to be. That is where the derelicts, the homeless hang out. It is where the drug pushers hang out, because there is parking and there is open spaces for people to meet people.

[ Murray ] Parks that were full of mothers with children and young children playing games when I was a kid in San Francisco, if you drive by them today they are deserted except for perhaps occasional derelict or homosexuals meeting place. You don’t see the people that were there 30, 40 year ago. It is just totally changed. You go down to Stockton down here and drive by the parks and the playgrounds and there is no kids there.

[ Scott ] So the kids... the kids that I... I did notice some time back that no American child is without an adult guardian at all times. So they never have a free period in their whole life. Now what happens to... to fellows who grow up who have never been free? That... in the... at the end of the war, World War II, I was walking down a dark street in France and every shop on both sides of the street the windows had been shattered except one where they had boarded it up very carefully and cleverly so that the glass was still there. And not too far ahead of me was a single soldier walking and he stopped and he looked around he didn’t see me. I was in dark clothes. And he kicked the window in. And I followed him into a bar, a small bar. And as it happens there was nobody else in there except the bar tender and he ordered a drink. I sat down and ordered a drink and I began to chat with him. I asked him where he was from. He was from some little place, some little town somewhere. And at one of those little towns that had no night life and nothing to do.

And I finally said, “Why did you kick the window in?”

And he got huffy about it and I calmed him down and he said, “Well, why not?” And I have never forgotten it because he struck me as an individual who had never been free for one minute and the minute he got free for just a couple of seconds on that street he kicked in the window.

[ Murray ] Reverted to barbarianism.

[ Scott ] He didn’t now what else to do.

[ Murray ] Yeah.

[ Scott ] And it sounds... when... when I think of all these children in the United States growing up under supervision. Don’t do that. Stop this. Go over there. And so forth, you know, I look back on childhood. You had a happy one. I had an unhappy one. I was ... it was a miserable period. I was too small. I was under everyone’s command. And there were an awful lot of commands. And my summers when I was free at my grandparents and the semi country was ... was heaven because I could go out and I had no supervision and I was all my... on my own.

What are we turning out here?

[ Murray ] Well, this is one of the results of having a weak government. The rising crime rate is changing the way people behave.

[ Scott ] That is true.

[ Rushdoony ] We have a powerful state, but a weak government.

[ Scott ] We have, well, the rising crime is always a weak government. And we ... we only have a powerful state for those who feel like obeying it.

[ Upton ] Oh, I... what I find interesting about sports is the NCAA. The NCAA tries to control every aspect of college sports and my hero in high school was one of the best athletes that I ever met. He got a full scholarship to USC. He started for USC for three years and intercepted a Joe Montana pass and I was shocked to see that after returning to a reunion that he had become the janitor at our high school. And the thing that is laughable about the NCAA is they impose these sanctions on these coaches because enough ... there are not enough athletes are graduating. And the thing is, is that these athletes are bringing in a ton of money to the universities. And I ... it seems to me the universities should figure out some type of a program for athletes, some kind of a specialized trade that an athlete like my friend that ended up a janitor could use because what is a... what is somebody like that going to do with a psychology degree? If they... if they fail in ... in professional sports, like most of... like 99.9 percent of them do they have no recourse. They don’t have a skill and a college degree I don’t consider as much of a skill to someone who ...

[ Rushdoony ] Well, a few years ago, you may recall, John, they found that some university graduates, football players could not read. And they had gotten all the way through grade and high school and a university.

[ Scott ] Well, it is hard to generalize because Jack Kemp was a football player.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] And the senator from New Jersey, Bradford, was a football player. We have had Gene Tunney was a very good business man after he got through boxing. Boxing used to be more of a skill. It got ... it... it went through an almost civil period where you tried not to kill the other guy. You tried to... to... to make a clean fight. It is own totally black with the exception of a few Hispanics. And I don’t know whether white men are doing that well or not. It used to be a way up for poor white men who were good fighters.

[ Rushdoony ] There is one area of sports we have not considered where the sport is alive and well and one such area is fishing. And the number of fishers, fly fishers, plug fishers, people who have really perfected it is increasing. And it is a good area of sports although a few environmentalists are now critical of even of that area. But it has been from the days of Isaac Walton to the present a highly regarded form of sports, a solitary one usually. But nonetheless a form of sport.

[ Murray ] No longer a survival skill.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Murray ] Politically correct fishing is where you let the fish win by letting him go.

[ Scott ] Oh. I used to fish with a fellow who later became a priest and he used to let the fish go and I never was so angry at anybody. That was when I was a boy I used to love to fish.

[ M Rushdoony ] It is something environmentalists don’t mention and something I didn’t realize until I read it a few years ago none of the streams on the eastern side of the Sierra which is now some of the prime trout fishing waters in the West, none had native trout in them. None had any type of game fish in them except, I believe, one stream. The rest were all put there in the last century by... by sportsmen.

[ Scott ] They were stocked, huh?

[ M Rushdoony ] And it was not easy in the last century....

[ Scott ] Right.

[ M Rushdoony ] ... to import fish and keep them alive to get them to the other side of the Sierras.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes, sportsman have done a great deal for game as well as for fish which is something the environmentalists don’t remember. They forget that these people are trying to perpetuate their sport.

[ Murray ] Ducks unlimited, you know they poured millions and millions of dollars into wet lands up in Canada and along the Pacific flyway to perpetuate the game birds.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Upton ] Well, the sport of choice among yuppies that like to ride horses own is the fox hunting is wild boar hunting and they imitate the English hunt, except that they don’t go after a fox. They go after a boar. And I had lunch with the ... a gentleman that works in Washington yesterday. And he told me that the most popular sport in Washington are destroying people’s lives. And you have the example of the Clintons friend that killed himself.

[ Rushdoony ] Foster.

[ Upton ] Yeah.

[ Rushdoony ] Vincent Foster.

[ Upton ] And he said it... it is hard to get good people to go there to be nominated to a post, a cabinet post because those people will literally destroy you.

[ Scott ] Well it is the grave yard of reputations and it has been that way since the Civil War. The ... in Caracas the big thing was to kill a jaguar. They went in.... they would go into the jungles and the Indians would beat the jaguar to you. And the idea was to kill it with a spear. It was not sporting to kill it with a gun. And after you killed it with the spear, why, then you could skin it and put it up on your office wall.’

[ Murray ] And sport used to be where the ... the animal had an edge.

[ Scott ] Yeah, well, the animal had a chance at least.

[ Murray ] Yeah.

[ Scott ] You know.

[ Upton ] Well, never in the bull fight does the bull have a chance.

[ Rushdoony ] No.

[ Upton ] I think that is a... I think... I just... I root for the bull.

[ Murray ] They win some times.

[ Upton ] Yeah.

[ Scott ] Yes, they do. And they do have a... they do have a chance.

[multiple voices].

[ M Rushdoony ] The Portuguese method does not kill them.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ M Rushdoony ] {?}

[ Rushdoony ] There are in Portuguese style bull fights down in the valley not too far below us. Very popular with the Hispanics in this area or down in the valley, that is.

[ Upton ] Well, there is a difference between team sports and individual sports. I think that the... that the team sports, I guess, are used to teach kids to cooperate with the team. The individual sports, I guess, are supposed to help you hone individual skills.

I have always preferred the individual sports over the team sports.

[ Murray ] I wonder how law enforcement officials feel about drugs coming into this country by the ton and they spend a lot of resources down here in the valley chasing guys that would rather fight chickens.

[ Scott ] Well, they are sent on those, aren’t they, by their superiors?

[ Murray ] {?} it must be to make them look good or get... get column inches in the paper or something but they are out doing something.

[ Scott ] The ... the police... I hate to say this, but they are not notorious for their courage. They think they are, but they are not. Nobody, none of the police have gone in after the gangs of L A to disarm them.

[ Murray ] They are not going to either.

[ Scott ] No. And they ... they don’t strike me as... as being very anxious to get hold of dangerous people.

[ Murray ] No, the... the... I think that people in this country have unrealistic expectations that law and order is ever going to be restored in ... in urban areas. It is just not going to happen. The police have already shown that in the L A riots.

[ Scott ] They walked away on the L A riot.

[ Murray ] {?}

[ Scott ] They refused to {?}

[multiple voices]

[ Rushdoony ] Well, they were ordered.

[ Scott ] I don’t care. They didn’t intervene.

[ Murray ] Yeah.

[ Scott ] And we have always said that a man shouldn’t obey an unlawful order.

[ Murray ] Yeah, there were people getting killed and they are sworn to... to serve and protect and they walked away from it. There were a lot of them that resigned, I mean, to their... there were about 300, I think, to their credit, that resigned because ...

[ Scott ] They were ashamed of the force.

[ Murray ] Yeah. They were... they were told, ordered to withdraw.

[ Scott ] That is interesting. I didn’t know that they had resigned.

[ Murray ] Yeah. They wouldn’t... they didn’t get much ...

[ Scott ] They didn’t get the press.

[ Murray ] Statement in the newspaper, but... they were ... they felt disgraced.

[ Scott ] They were disgraced. What a difference between that and Mr. Coolidge. When they had a Boston police strike there was an outburst of crime. He said, “No... no one has the right to strike against the public safety.” He fired them all and they stayed fired. It made him a hero. Reagan fired the... what was it?

[ Murray ] The controllers.

[ Scott ] The... the aircraft controller and he was... he was criticized forever.

[ Murray ] Clinton wants to bring them back.

[ M Rushdoony ] They probably don’t remember how to climb the stairs to get into the tower.

[ Murray ] Yeah, if they can still make it up the stairs {?}. Well, they lose their skills, but that is {?} to the subject.

[ Upton ] I will bet all of us have a story, a sports story that is from childhood that we remember that we will never forget. Mine is I was playing little league baseball. I was third base. We were ahead by one run. It was their last at bat and all I had to do if the ball was hit to me was to scoop it up and touch my bag. The game was over, we would win. And I was praying that the ball would be hit away from me and wouldn’t you know this kid hit a ball. It landed right at my ankles. It went through my legs and they scored three runs. I lost the game for my buddies. I was crying and I will never forget that moment. Does anybody else have a story like that?

[ M Rushdoony ] That never happened to any of us.

[ Upton ] I thought the world ended on that day.

[ Murray ] Oh, we have all had such {?} such situations like that I am sure. When I was a kid, though, they would always send me out to right field, because I would... I would choke up. You, know, there would be this great big soaring, you know, play softball and this softball would just seem to float through the air, you know, like a balloon coming down slowly. I mean, anybody should be able to catch it. And for some reason or another my timing in... my timing would be off and I would ... I wouldn’t bring my hands together and the thing would drop to the ground. You know, and everybody would just throw their hands up in the air.

[ Scott ] There are things. There was a pile driver that pulled up at a small pier I the river in the Hudson when my grandparents lived about 60 miles up the Hudson. And one of the boys climbed half way up the pile driver. I don’t know how high it was. He climbed to the middle of the platform and dove off and everyone praised his courage. Oh, boy. Oh, was he good. So I climbed to the top and I dove off. I had a headache for about three days afterwards as a result, but when I came up they all had their back turned.

[ Murray ] You were a show off, huh?

[ Scott ] Every one.

[ Rushdoony ] Well, in a high school baseball game I was in the outfield and I dropped a ball. I really felt sick about that, but it made me realize something, that I was far sighted. It took me a year or two before I figured it out mainly because I went to a doctor when I went to college that I was far sighted but ...

[ Scott ] When it got close you couldn’t see.

[ Rushdoony ] Close up... there are... things got a little blurred, because that was a horrible feeling. That is a thing about baseball that I respect. That also is very horrifying if you make an error. You are there all by yourself.

[ Scott ] You can’t blame anybody.

[ Rushdoony ] No, you can’t.

[ Murray ] Well I... I always figured they just didn’t make the gloves big enough. If I could just get a big enough glove I would never miss.

[ M Rushdoony ] They have made them bigger. They have made them bigger.

[ Upton ] Yeah.

[ M Rushdoony ] But you look in the sporting goods store they are...

[ Murray ] They have two hands...

[ M Rushdoony ] ...quite large.

[ Murray ] ... to hold it up in the air.

[ Upton ] Well, I remember the panic of, in school, of being picked... chosen last to play a game. You know, you would line up.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Upton ] And ...and if you were chosen last and I was ... I was heavy. I was fat when I was I grade school and for the finesse sports I would always be picked last. But I could kick a ball a mile so when we played kickball everybody was my friend. Oh, John, John. When on the a finesse sport they have a fat... fatty... oh, we don’t want fatty. But if it is something power or something like that so... that is when I ... was the happiest in school.

[ Scott ] Well, what is happening now is that very young children begin training and they train around the clock so they become tumblers at the age of 13 and ice skaters when they are in their early teens and I was taken to one of these sessions. A fellow with some fried of his had a daughter who was training to be an ice skater and it was in a special building and they had the glass and they had the rink and they had the music and a coach and hours and hours so sports have become professionalized in the United States and you mentioned this before that most of the people are become watchers whereas when was a boy we played. We weren’t watchers. I don’t recall ever taking my money, if I... when I got some money and buying a ticket to a ball game. I played ball, pick up, but...

[ Rushdoony ] And we played by the hour.

[ Scott ] Yes.

[ Murray ] I just wonder how many of those youngsters who are trained whether it is their idea whether they really want to do it or whether they are trying to buy the love of their parents..

[ Scott ] No, I think they are...

[ Murray ] Or they are performing or by realizing the unrealized expectations or goals of their parents.

[ Scott ] Well, I think it is a parental thing. I think the parents are trying to make some money. And if you have a kid who is physically adaptable and ... and willing to go along and so forth, just as parents used to work to get a violinist or a pianist in the family, a musician. There has been an awful lot lost. The... the... there is a great deal of interest in sports, but there is not many players.

[ M Rushdoony ] You know, that... that idea of starting a child when they are only, you know, six, seven, eight years old started in the Communist countries to bring glory to the state. And so the... the parents were told you have an obligation to give us your child and... and then they will go to a special school that is only for gymnasts. And this is your child’s chance to get glory to the state and advance them and get special privileges.

[ Scott ] Well...

[ M Rushdoony ] And we have adopted that.

[ Scott ] We have to a an... a great extent... well, it has become a... a highly paid... very few at the top of the pyramid, but those who do become rich. The... Anne tells me that children ballet doesn’t work at all until they are at least nine years old because they don’t have the coordination. And the feel, you see, all these women taking these tiny little tots into a ballet class which is they are fumbling around and it is... it is ridiculous, of course. They are very cute. But the nine year old ... and you can tell fairly soon. You can tell within a few months whether there is any promise. And, of course, there has to be an interest. But it is a form of slavery. It is a terrible career, because they don’t pay. They work the hell out of them. The impresarios collect the money. They have never managed to do what the professional athlete has done and get into the business with a large sums.

But there is less actual participation by the people in music, in sports and in almost every area.

[ Upton ] Yeah. We have become watchers. Well, this... this idea of the parents putting the pressure on the children. My wife Suzanne warned me against coaching a fourth grade basketball team. She said, “John, you are too intense to do it. Don’t... don't do it.”

And I said, “No. Our daughter is going to play basketball and I will be her coach and it will be a joyous experience.”

Well, what I didn’t know was ... is that the other coaches that had coached for a long time had a system of getting the best kids on their team. And their rationale was is that they are training their kids to get scholarships for basketball even though they are in the fourth grade. And so they would surround the kids, their kids with all these good... there was like three coaches so like a dummy I was given two good players and six lousy players. And I just worked with what I had and we lost a lot of games.

Well, what would happen is when these coaches ... when I played these coaches they would run the score up and my kids were becoming more and more demoralized because there were some wouldn’t even show up for the game. So I said to one of these coaches, I said, “Look, why don’t we just use running quarters? Because you have kids that are a foot taller than mine and you have for some reason I have nine kids and you have 18 kids. Why don’t we just use... play half a game?”

No, we can’t do that, because I am training for the playoffs.

And I... I said, “Well, I will tell you what. I am going to put my kids on the floor for one half, because... and I will concede the game, but I am not going to torture these poor little fourth graders and have them demoralized, you know, at your expense.” And... and they didn’t like that very much. So... so one coach got pretty huffy and I said, “Well, I’ll tell you what. Why don’t you and I go outside with a basketball and we will play one on one and determine whoever wins our game, our team will with the game.” He wouldn’t want to do that. So it... so last year I coached, but some of these people don’t... do not have a life and I think the worst the... the worst ... or the least of the athletes become the worst of the coaches. If you were a good athlete, if you proved what you needed to prove on the playing field I think you could be a good coach, but if you are a frustrated athlete, I... I... you are the last person who should coach.

[ Rushdoony ] Well, our time is nearly up. Is there a last statement that any of you would like to make on the subject before we end the evening?

[ Scott ] I think we have moved from sports to business, from sports to the business of sports. And the business of sports has destroyed sport in the classic sense among us.

[ Rushdoony ] I am afraid you are right. And for those of us who used to enjoy, as I did, baseball so very much, I have become less and less interested. I read an interesting article this past year on how if you really want to enjoy baseball go to the class b baseball semi pro team in your area because there it is still played with zest and delight in the game.

[ Murray ] It is still... it is still a game.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ M Rushdoony ] You know, with all the professional athletes and you think of the... the... people who train for years to get into the Olympics, the to... the... the athletes that gain some of the most attention in, I think it was the last winter Olympic games, one was a ... what... what... I forget his name. It was an amateur from Great Britain that.... that did the... the high jump on the ski jump that he was... he was... he was awful. But he made the Olympic team because I don’t... I don’t know what the conditions were, but nobody from his country was going to the Olympics so he... he managed to get on the team and he was in the Olympics and he became something of a... a folk here for it and the other team that they... they since made a... I believe a movie about his... the Jamaican bobsled team. They had to practice with a bobsled on wheels. What...

[ Rushdoony ] Thank you all for listening and God bless you all. Good night.

[ Voice ] Authorized by the Chalcedon Foundation. Archived by the Mount Olive Tape Library. Digitized by ChristRules.com.