LIKE Yuletide carols in October, competitive notes of the upcoming BBEAL are in the air. Softball will not be played until 2014 but the expectancy of confrontation has started simmering as hostilities for the 1st half events unfold this August. While it does not appear to be so in CAR, collegiate athletic tournaments are vital extensions of an institution’s soul in its quest for relative greatness. Here, its lofty visions are translated to concrete realities for validation while verbose mission statements are tested in the crucible of intense competition. The outcomes are portents of things to come and partial reflections of institutional priorities. Also, this is a time when friendly rivalries are renewed and old scores are settled amidst cheers and jeers. Ultimately, a crown is retained or gained by another. No other event in the school calendar besides long vacations is met with so much enthusiasm and attendance by its paying stakeholders.
Athletic games such as the BBEAL, CAR’s version of the glitzy UAAP are miniature versions of the ancient Olympic Games. Plato, a distinguished philosopher of classical Greece was himself an Olympian. In The Republic, he posits the tournaments of the gods are means to achieve an ideal –- bodily and intellectual excellence. Mens sana in corpora sano –- a sound mind in a healthy body. He makes an interesting statement, “Exclusive attention to physical prowess may make a man become brutish, like an animal; but exclusive attention to the mind may make him brittle and soft. The body and mind should be cultivated together.”
Plato’s view of education’s ideal contemplated neither brain alone nor brawn alone but a mix of body and soul. To the illuminati, that is not current mindset. Their pragmatic stand would be encapsulated in the tenor of Bill Clinton’s 1992 election campaign motto, “It’s the degree, st#p*d!” The present educational system has evolved to extol the intellectual with honor while physical athleticism is a mere incident - a ho-hum. To the cranial purist, athleticism’s real value is just entertainment. The games are no different from watching the gladiator Maximus delight Rome with the thunderous shout, “Do you want to be entertained?” After being caught in the movie’s climax, they exit with the denouement detached and morph back to a default life called normalcy. Vicariously, none would be Maximus, general or slave. Varsity games are only a snort of some sort, an intellectual junkie’s quickie.
Uncomfortable with athleticism, an influential intelligentsia would stereotype student athletes as a class lacking in gray matter. They are treated like square pegs in round holes expected to bundle with the academic tao. With perseverance, some warrior spirits survive while others fail. That notwithstanding, they must transform to extraordinary men in the arena and find favor with the gods.
The middle ground is not always acceptable to the academic puritans but as long as softball and other varsity games are more than entertainment, there will be in every healthy body, always a healthy mind. Also as long as sports are not played by nerds using telekinesis, Zod’s constricted think alikes cannot come. Mankind is safe. Kal-el is here and Yani the Bear can be Lois Lane anytime. Reset the default and let the games begin!