When the UF gymnastics team competes in the NCAA Championships on April 20, you can be damned sure I’ll be watching on ESPN. It’s one of the most entertaining spectacles in college athletics, and you’d be foolish to tune out if you’re not busy.
But I’m still not sure if what I’ll be watching is technically a sport. Who’s to say if it is or isn’t? Who’s the authority on such matters?
My ex-girlfriend, who graduated with a degree in linguistics from UF, was the first person to introduce me to the concept of descriptivism. It’s a fancy way of saying that syntax or word choice doesn’t matter too much as long as the point you’re trying to make is received by the listener.
For example, if one of your friends told you the newest Cardi B album is “fire,” you probably wouldn’t assume it is literally flaming, but rather it’s really, really good. On that same note, even if that same friend said Cardi B’s album is “literally fire,” you would still infer that it isn’t actually burning.
So when someone says something like, “Gymnastics isn’t a sport,” I tend to cringe a little. Aside from some thinly veiled sexism, the gatekeeping of what is and isn't a sport is taken incredibly seriously by some. And that’s coming from a reformed prescriptivist.
See, prescriptivism is the opposite side of the coin in the linguistics argument: Words and syntax have rules that ought to be abided. If you screw up those rules, what you mean is ultimately lost on the reader or listener.
And this is where my confusion used to come into play with regards to what the definition of a sport is. To me, a sport used to be a physical competition between individuals or teams in which an objective score is kept to decide a winner and loser, or if the opposing sides competed to a stalemate. Basketball, track and golf are all prime examples that fit that bill. They’re contests where athletes exert physical effort to earn points that are awarded with a set-in-stone scoring system.
Things like gymnastics or video gaming wouldn’t be included in this definition. Yes, gymnasts are some of the most athletic humans on Earth, but their scores are made up from a panel of judges, not by doing something that is demonstrably faster, stronger or farther than someone else. Video gamers check that box by having a definite, unbiased way to decide a winner, but leave out the physical exertion part.
There are some among us who would say gamers or gymnasts are lower on the totem pole of sports and entertainment. But I tend to dismiss those folks as people who just talk smack without any real substance behind it.
So what’s the real definition of a sport? Why won’t someone just come up with a solution and share it with the world?
The truth is that there isn’t one. There’s no real definition of a what a sport is or isn’t.
When (Not “if.” Get this done, Scott Stricklin) UF fields an underwater basket-weaving team in the near future, it’ll have a prominent place up on the Florida Gators’ website right under the “Track and Field” tab. In the eyes of that web domain, it’ll be a sport in exactly the same way both gymnastics and basketball are.
So embrace the chaos and learn to love all competitions, athletic or otherwise. If you and your significant other are in a contest to see who can sleep the most, call it a sport. Got a friendly wager to see who can hold the longest conversation exclusively using lyrics from “Invasion of Privacy?” Totally a sport.
Words are made-up things anyway.
Morgan McMullen is the online sports editor at The Alligator. Follow him on Twitter @MorganMcMuffin and contact him at mmcmullen@alligator.org.
Is chess a sport? What about video gaming? Competitive eating?
