WILLIAM Shakespeare loved sport. Alright, granted, we may not have much evidence of that but he would have understood it just as he clearly understood life then, in his time. And just as his writings are still as relevant and relatable to life now, so they provide great insight into sport. In his play ‘Macbeth’, we hear that “Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” We could easily and rightly change the word ‘life’ to ‘sport’ in that sentence (we have, after all, “a poor player”) and the message would be equally strong.
When he writes in ‘Henry IV part 2’ that “Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown", so we could echo that sentiment for the team that tops the league. In ‘Midsummer’s Night Dream’ we are advised that “Lord, what fools these mortals be!” and many an observer would use that to describe the sports’ fanatic for all his dreams. Instead of “A horse! A horse! A kingdom for a horse!” [Richard III], modern frustrated coaches might declare “A win! A win! A kingdom for a win”!
And then we might come to the famous lines from ‘King Lear’ (Act IV scene I:37–38) where Gloucester, having been viciously blinded, lost and isolated utters the desperate view that “As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods; They kill us for their sport.” He feels that our human experiences here on earth are random, uncaring, wild, meaningless; the gods are just playing with us, toying with us, removing us with no sentiment, consistency. Human suffering is just arbitrary and meaningless; we are nothing to the gods.
Whether we agree with such a strong sentiment or not, a similar description could potentially be applied to our school sports coaches.
Firstly, they may be seen to be killing sport as a whole, just as in a recent English Premier League soccer match, the manager got the goalkeeper to feign an injury so he could gather his players round at the touchline and give them instructions.
Such an abuse of sportsmanship is killing sport. However, secondly and more importantly, school sports coaches may be tempted to treat their players lightly, randomly, uncaringly, just for their own sport, their own fun and pleasure and purpose or reputation.
They could come across as gods, all-powerful, playing around with children, for their sport, for their own ego (not thinking of the children’s sport).
They make the sport such a big deal that parents fall for it and in turn demand that their child is selected at the highest level. They think that they are ‘killing it’, in the sense of proving it to be so easy.
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However, they may not be the only ones accused of killing kids for their own sport. National Sports Bodies must be very careful that they are not playing around with children’s lives when pushing them at an early age.
They promise the world to the talented child, prophesying he will be the next great national player but when another, also talented, child comes along they will quickly ditch the first one.
They play with children’s lives; they do not care for the whole child, for the all-round development of character. It is not only children’s dream that they kill for fun but their very character, confidence. They are wanton; they just want one, it does not matter who.
Furthermore, we need to be very careful as schools that we do not play with children’s lives, when we give scholarships to talented youngsters in other schools simply so our school can win, yet all the time putting great pressure on the child who has been given a scholarship to perform all the time while also depriving a child who has played hard all the way through school with the dream of playing for the school first team, only to be dropped for someone from outside.
Less King Lear and more Kids Learning. Let us understand that the children are more important than the sport, that nothing is more important than the children. We must not be guilty of playing with our children’s development and lives. Our school sport must not become “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
And if we want another great Shakespeare quote (always a good idea!) to answer whether we want coaches to act like the gods, look no further than ‘Hamlet’ Act III, Scene 3, line 87. What is that magical quote?
“No”! Simple. Shakespearean.
