Sports Ethics: Who is a Competitor?

We were driving home from grade school one day having a discussion about the meaning of life (both kids will tell you of the madness of having two professors for parents). My daughter piped up, "well life is a journey to discover." My son hurrumped as only a ten year old can and proclaimed, "life is a game you play to win." I know, my wife and I were not planning on raising stereotypes, but there you have it.

Life is a game you play to win?

Simple enough:  A life philosophy? A way of being in the world? A way to relate to problems?

In the world of sport and of athletic competition, the highest compliment that can be paid to a person is "he or she is a competitor." I guess that the competition in athletic competition gives it away.

Being a competitor pervades the language that describes, evaluates, demeans and praises athletics. Yet it is important to remember that being a competitor does not mean a person always wins. An athletic winner can compliment the opposing person or team who lost by saying, "they were great competitors." Being a competitor may be vital to succeeding and winning, but it exists as a separate ethical status in sports. 

The reality of being a competitor lies at the moral heart of athletics and any defense of the moral worth of sports. But what does it mean? to be a competitor? Why is it morally worthy and respected even by the individuals who may win over a person. Is it a good way to live and approach life?

To compete requires a context and someone to compete against. One competes for a purpose. Without a goal to gain and someone who also seeks it, there is no competition.

In theories of evolution creatures compete to survive. They compete against other creatures seeking to survive. Sometimes the competition can be brutal and head to head since creatures seek to control the same resources of an area or herd. sometime competition can be brutal individuals compete as prey and predator or males compete for access to female  Such competition can end in a zero sum game--one dead, one alive. One propagating, one slinking away.

Sometimes, however, individuals compete to find a right and secure niche, and successful competition can mean finding co-surviving niches or cooperative strategies to survive. To succeed in this environment the creature must develop their traits and skill and intelligence to thrive in their ecosystem, not necessarily dominate another creature.

The essence of the biological competitor lies in the incessant challenge posed to survive against the environmental challenges and the other competitors who seek similar goals. The moral worth of a successful competitor is clear; the individual survives. Interestingly in this world, competitors do not want to compete against the best unless they have to. Their risk assessment preference prefers the weaker and less likely to succeed--the unique human and athletic desire to push oneself and gain glory by competing against the best grows from human's capacity for self reflection and self comparison. 

The moral worth of competition can emerge from its relationship to refine and develop the quality of a being. Being a competitor demonstrates its worth in how it contributes to the being's ability to survive and thrive.Competition hones a creature's skills and ability to thrive. It can drive a creature to develop its capabilities to their maximum extent and to find the right niche where these capabilities bring reward.

Being a competitor involves two possible obvious outcomes: to lose or win against the environment or fellow competitors. In the biological frame, to lose means to die, to win, means a creature lives another day, that is the reward, not dying, living another day for another set of possibilities.

Actually a third outcome exists. If a creature or species loses in the competition for resources, they do not necessarily die. They can move to another ecosystem. They can find different resources that permit them to survive by filling unoccupied niches or exploiting underutilized resources. They can accept a different and lower place in the herd. A real competitor can also be smart and use the "loss" to find another way to survive and thrive. They can also use the loss to get smarter, skilled or stronger.

Competing helps creatures and people grow. It can help them develop and get better or find the right niche for them by trying one area and moving to another.  But what does being a competitor mean for a human being and an athlete.

Athletic Competitors

At its center being a competitor involves an internal dialogue where the person sets goals and measures him or herself against their ability to achieve those goals. One can compete against oneself to expand skills, develop knowledge, refine technique and practice, reflect and learn. Being a competitor begins with the internal stance of competing against oneself and pushing and testing and developing one's skills.

This self dialogue introduces an often lost aspect of being a high performing competitor. Good competitors learn and adapt when they lose or face strong competition. But strong competitors  also innovate. In professional and athletic competition, people use their mind to reframe issues. They discover new ideas and approaches and tactics. They invent new ways to deploy resources and even one's body or team strategy. So being a competitor involves not just endless refining one's skill and strength and bodily integration, but thinking and applying imagination and mind to the game and challenges before the person. This can range from innovation in training, mental preparation, nutrition as well as tactics and skill refinement. A good competitor pushes him or herself to get better both for the sake of their own excellence and of winning against competitors. 

A competitor lies in an uneasy relationship to him or herself and to life. The relationship to self remains restless since personal identity can anchor in success as an athlete.  Any strong competitor can link their sense of self worth to the extrinsic goal of winning, not just the intrinsic goals of meeting their own aspirations.

This relation to self involves a constant assessment of how good one's skills and intelligence. A competitor cannot ever be satisfied with him or herself. The challenges of the game or sport change. Younger, more talented and sometimes more innovative athletes enter the arena of competition. No safe harbors exist. To succeed and stay competitive in this arena requires immense personal focus and discipline and adaptability. It means every day tests whether one has the self-discipline and desire to perfect one's skills and push oneself to the limits to stay in the game.  

This self awareness and discipline is why "she's a competitor" remains one of the highest compliments athletes can pay to fellow athletes or coaches can pay to their own or opposing athletes. It articulates the deepest level of respect that exists independent  of whether the athlete wins or loses, it means they compete.

The competitor works to perfect and overcome deficiencies that are revealed in competition. Most athletes not only love to win, but they HATE to lose. In fact one of the saddest aspects of many competitors lies in the reality that he or she does not nearly enjoy the delight of winning and the sheer rush of being at your best; but rather feels only relief that they did not lose.  The fear of losing and the  pain of loss drives can reduce a competitor to a dreary driven and haunted life.

More than a few athletes can be described as "one of the most competitive people I know." What the person reveals is not just the drive to excel and win in athletics, but this carries over into every area of their life. I can be tiddly winks or RISK or making money or just goofing around over a video game. It does not matter, this type of competitor can be fun to have around, but to be honest can get pretty tiresome if they have to win or more to the point, just act out when they  lose. Learning to be an accomplished competitor is only part of learning to be an accomplished human and friend.

Each loss can eat away at their self worth, but real competitors use it as a spur to get better. This quest to get better defines another moral aspect of a competitor and athlete's code--a competitor does not quit. What does that mean? To most athletes quitting  takes on a moral overtone, to give up, to refuse to try any more. A quitter is the antithesis of a competitor.

This is not the same as a conscious decision that one cannot attain the level of excellence or cannot compete at the same level. This acknowledges  truthful self assessment. It means individuals may leave the field and retire or they may go to another level of competition such as age related such as  masters tournaments and levels where people can compete and excel and not give up but move beyond the need to win.

Competition possesses a darker side. First, it possesses its own demonic dynamic where competitors demonize the other competitors. Teams or individuals will compete not just to push themselves, not just to be the best and win but they supplement this motivation by projecting anger or hatred on the opponents. This anger and hatred motivate. 

The demonization undermines the sportsmanship by pushing individuals to test the rules in ways designed to hurt or punish the other side, not just win within the rules. Too many coaches preach to their teams that members need to  dislike or hate their opponents. This dehumanizing lessens the nobility and strength of the competitor as a model of emulation. It distorts the satisfaction of winning into a sharp lust for dominating rather than sheer appreciation of winning and being the best that a person or team can be at that moment.

Second, darkness can shape how competition pushes individuals to get better. A competitor learns from mistakes. When they lose or get bested, they think about why they lost, work on the weaknesses or perfect their strengths, and they work to get better. But two dangers sneak in here. In the first the competitor sacrifices their self worth and identity to the external trophy of winning, to their need to beat the other. Their worth and success is in some ways diminished because they triumph not in their excellence but in their dominance that depends upon the endless king of the mountain game. When they do lose, they lose not just the game, but they feel less as a person. Or as my ten year old volleyball players used to do, they blame it on the other team, the coach, anyone but themselves because it hurts too much.

Of course my young male volleyball players missed another vital point. Evolutionary biology demonstrates that the best cooperators become the best competitors. Humans succeed as a species not because of their immense strength, talent or even intelligence. They succeed because of their capacity to develop complex successful teams that succeed. The same is true of sports. Talent and skill will often fall before talent and skill melded into a coherent team philosophy and commitment. True competitors understand that successful competition requires a team culture.

Another facet needs to be remembered. A competitor competes to the end of the trial. This is why winners will compliment the vanquished. The competitor gives it all their effort and skill even when he or she is losing. Even when he or she or the team falls so far behind, no chance exists to overcome the deficit. The athlete keeps fighting and competing. This drive and way of being honors the game they play, honors their opponents but above all honors their own integrity. The person wins that internal dialogue that even when the extrinsic goal eludes them, the intrinsic goals exist and the person remains true to their self, their goals and their teammates. 

The great competitors revel in their wins, but they revel as much in their excellence, in the sheer joy and fun and success where they and their teammates exhibit utter mastery that plays out as success and victory. They don't need domination but they celebrate mastery.

The Oracle Ethical Debacle at the America’s Cup

Team Oracle may or may not win the America’s Cup. While the cup itself is a billionaire’s bauble, Oracle’s approach represents a perfect corruption of the competitive ideal. Larry Ellison, the world’s fifth richest man, has pursued this bauble for a generation. His boat finally won it in 2010 in a race with no design rules. The superior technology won. He then rewrote the rules to minimize the number of competitors; cheated on his own rules, then complained about the rules. This approach represents the pure distillation of arrogance, wealth and competitive disdain for rules where winning is all that matters.

I know nothing about sailing except for hanging over the side trying to avoid puking for two hours the last time I tried. Every several years I do follow the America’s cup. The America’s Cup used to be a bumptious competition among millionaires sailing to win the “world’s oldest trophy” (sic). An oddity of the cup, the winner could write the rules for the next competition including specifying the dimensions of the boats and choosing the place.

Despite its rhetoric, the competition has never been genteel or nice. Millionaires let alone billionaires are seldom genteel or nice. The cutthroat wealthy litigated, fought, pushed boundaries, got penalties and fought for advantage from hiding keel innovations to new hull materials. The competition, however, remained on a relatively level and specified field with boat specifications.

While Ellison and his arrogance and money pushed it into the twenty first century with technology innovations, the cup degenerated into an ugly morass of international litigation among giant corporations. In 2010 a special sail off with no rules, lead to Oracle finally winning on the basis of running differing technologies against each other. The superiortechnology with no rules lead to the victory.

Oracle got to rewrite the rules of competition and choose the venue. It did so with a vengeance including outlawing appeals of governing board decisions and prohibiting anyone who litigated in court from competing. This was designed to avoid the morass that singed its winning competition.

He mandated a new class of cutting edge boat called anew class of super boats called AC72 catamarans—boats welded carbon fiber and airplane technology to sailing. This set minimum design specifications upon size and style and places some thing like a level playing field. It also pushed the design and technology to its furthestboundaries.   

The competition should then reduce to sophisticated and fine-grained tweaks. It would have some thing to do skill, training, integrated teamwork and reading the wind and course rather than technological superiority.

The boats are stunningly beautiful and fly across the waves at 40 plus knots. The boats are essentially flying wings with 13 story advanced fiber-carbon technology airplane wings as the main sail. They are majestic and stunning to watch and incredibly fragile and hard to sail. At least they created a “category” within which groups can tweak and build boats unlike Oracle’s sham victory in 2010.

Having defiled the concept of competition last time, Oracle proceeded to ruin any credibility it had as a team and culture as thoroughly as Lance Armstrong did for biking. Let’s follow this.

1.    They turned a millionaires sport into a multi-billionaire’s sport or corporate—much like what formula one racing has become. This year only five groups could even think about building boats to compete. The boats cost 100 million plus dollars. Along with Prada and the Artemis syndicate; the best competitor turned out to be Emirates New Zealand.

2.   Last year Oracle was caught cheating by spying on Emirates in New Zealand. Nothing unusual here, just regular cut throat cheating in a billionaire’s game. But having rewritten the rules, Oracle would not even abide by them. 

3.   After cheating once, Oracle cheated again when they overloaded the weighting in the World Cup races where 45-foot catamarans raced. These boats were regulated by exact specifications raced to test skill and train, not just reward technology. They were also serving as prototypes for the America’s Cup boats.

4.   The team and leaders denied all knowledge of the overweighting and cheating. To be clear, no one believes them. This is a team noted for its maniacal control and culture. Everything is controlled from top down and nothing goes unnoticed. 

5.   After cheating twice and then getting caught, Oracle paid a pittance of a fine of 670,000 dollars. But they also were penalized two races in the America’s Cup competition and started -2 races. They complained when they could not appeal; after they had rewritten the rules to no one could appeal decisions.

6.   This culture of cheating leads to an odd forms of pouting and utterly lack of loyalty. In the very first race, having proven their disdain for rules, the Oracle boat bleeped violation charges against Emirates four times in the first several minutes of the first race!  This tells you about the attitude of the crew and leadership obsessed with rules they have already broken.

7.   After falling behind in races, the boat jettisoned its navigator and ran out to hire a world famous navigator, probably the best money can buy demonstrating, not only do rules not matter when winning is all that counts but neither do people.

The Oracle team epitomizes a culture that values winning over everything. It even ignored the reality in 2010 that winning itself is defined by rules. They have assumed technology could defy or at least transcend rules. They illustrate how wealth facing sport unbound by competitive rules that level the playing field, turn competition into farce.

Oracle prefers a world without rules. Denied that, it prefers a world where they write the rules. Even given that they prefer to cheat on the rules they have written. Whatever aspirations Oracle have to some pseudo-samurai worldview that Ellison preaches, team Oracle has missed the fundamental point—a samurai lives by a code. Winning matters, but winning with honor matters more.

Oracle in the America’s cup demonstrates what happens when winning is all that matters.

Oracle may win; but it deserves to lose.

Sports Ethics: Create a Level Playing Field

The joy of playing and watching sports depends heavily upon real competition. Competition invokes risk of failure or success. True competition requires uncertainty. Uncertainty connects sports to real life that has no guarantees, no certainty. Competitive outcomes then depend upon effort, talent, focus, adversary's skill and luck. Leaders of sports have an obligation to keep real competition alive in sports—a level playing field

Stewards of sports such as governing bodies and commissioners must work hard to create a level playing field over time. A level playing field keeps the integrity of sports intact. Without it sports reduces to the pretend of wrestling, the corrupted outcomes of gambling or boredom. Like in life lack of a level playing field makes a sham of fairness and long term hope.

When players step onto the field, they should believe that they have a chance to compete and win. When fans commit to a team as a representative of their community and aspect of identity, they desire a chance for their team to compete and win.

A level playing field occurs over time. Each season several teams may be demonstrably better than others. When the better teams compete they will have a much higher probability to win. Players and fans want the chance to compete over time and for the best teams to change over time. Competition should breed diversity and surprise. Over time teams can organize talent, smarts, focus and intensity and become better.

Unless you are a Yankee fan, watching games where you know one team will always win is boring. Worse it takes the guts out of sport because players become tempted to go through the motions and the quality of play declines because teams stagnate when competitive pressures do not push invention.

All sports face the danger of the migration of talent and skill to money. The richest teams buy the best talent and dominate the sports year after year. This cycle of winning reinforces itself when the best players want to play for a winner rather than being stuck on perpetual losing teams.

Thinking of sports as a competitive market means that one team or group of teams morph into a monopoly or oligopoly. These competitive markets mean that certain teams are guaranteed to lose the majority of the games over time and have little chance of ever winning a championship. Freezing the competitive hierarchy ruins real competition, ruins interest in the sport and can sap the motivation of players who are doomed to play on teams that not only cannot win championships but seldom can even “make a game of it.”

Monopoly and oligopoly in sports sap quality because real competition pushes players to grow. Real competition pushes teams to innovate in training, tactics or strategy to get a competitive edge so teams invest in smarts as well as talent. All these dynamics are sapped when a monopoly or oligopoly controls competition.

In the last twenty years with the reluctant cooperation of unions and ultra-individualist owners, American professional sports have developed a series of devices to protect the possibility of level playing fields, if the teams are smart enough to use the leverage of the devices. These include:

1.   A draft system that permits the worst teams the year before to draft first in the talent pool.

2.  Salary caps in professional basketball, football and soccer. This cap limits the total expenditures by a team and requires that contracts be structured to maximize up front payments. It discourages stockpiling high priced talent because huge payouts to individuals like quarterbacks hurt the team’s ability to get strong supporting players.

3.  Baseball backed into a half ass solution that works despite itself with teams able to spend unlimited amounts but beyond a specified level teams pay very high luxury taxes that are commonly distributed.

4.  Most of the leagues now have strong minimum requirements of expenditure that ensures owners cannot simply milk teams as profit centers.

5.  Wider talent pools. This has developed by design in baseball, soccer and basketball with international scouting and signings. In football and basketballs it results from a deeper and earlier training pool where talented players are spotted and groomed from the age of 12.

6.  Expansion has diluted talent across teams where even with talent pool expansion the talent across vital positions such as pitcher or quarterback is diminished across many teams.

7.  Slotting salaries exist for first round draftees along with limited control periods. This minimizes the risk of teams to invest in untested rookies and increases money available for veterans. The rookies who succeed get their payoff when they reach end of control period and become free agents.

8.  Unlimited free agency permits players to gain serious salary increases at the height of their talent.

a.   More importantly from a level playing field, it means that teams can rebuild relatively fast if they have drafted well and have spot needs that free agents can address. Teams relying solely on free agency to build “the best team money can buy” have not fared so well. It turns out that the skill production of players becomes very unpredictable in late twenties and early thirties, so many free agency hires turn out to be economic mistakes.

9.  The leagues created larger playoffs and strategically used “wild card” teams to make the stakes of winning last longer and go deeper into the standings. This means a much higher percentage of teams are competitive for playoff status longer into the season. This has helped minimize the number of meaningless games.

Dave Cameron brilliantly analyzes baseball's competitive resurgence in these terms but adds several points.  “Institute testing for PEDS, lessoning the ability of high-revenue teams to buy inflated late-career production. Shepard in analytics that allow poorer teams to level the market for players values.” He concludes that this has transformed cultures of teams and fans who now believe they can compete and win creating a “virtuous cycle” of interest and achievement. 

He makes underappreciated points about PED limiting stockpiling of talent and the ability of “intelligence” to offset money.

These combined approaches have lead to a remarkable renaissance of competitive parity across leagues. While the balance is unstable, the proof lies in the interesting confluence that salaries are rising, most teams are making a profit or increasing in market valuation and multiple teams are winning championships while competitive surprises can and regularly do occur.

To stand up to legal scrutiny these restraints on trade in the interest of both profits and quality of competition require strong unions and commissioners. This means the settlements are voluntary contracts that the law can tolerate. Owners alone would conspire against players, illegally collude on salary but also permit the strong and rich to dominate and create permanent inequalities such as baseball.

To create a level playing field takes constant vigilance and work. Competition in limited domains can naturally devolve to dominance by wealth and inequality. Owners, on their own, would prefer this. It takes strong leaders such as commissioners to negotiate order on  the chaotic and individualistic owners as well as strong unions willing to protect the game to ensure economic rewards. Level playing field takes rules that permit long redistribution of talent and enable innovation and intelligence to be rewarded.

The commissioners have to work to  convince owners and players that protecting the quality of competition and game created a better “media product” as well as more fan interest. This permitted the leaders to align self-interest with game quality.

A level playing field invites players to compete with intensity and to devote effort to getting better because they have a chance to win and excel. A level playing field reinforces fan’s loyalty to their “home” teams by adding the thrill of enjoying winning and collectively partaking in the satisfaction of a team that ‘represents’ them. They can feel satisfaction in being connected to the excellence and achievement of the athletes as well as the delirium of for one brief second winning.

Sports Ethics: Keep Your Edge

“I lost my edge.” Athletes and professionals mutter this when they struggle with their skills and when they begin to feel their skills eroding or when they feel competitors starting to surpass them.  I think the idea of keeping our edge generates powerful ethical and psychological insights about what how high achieving individuals live. What does it mean to play at the edge?

Think of edges in two ways. First, edges can be sharp, dull or somewhere in between. Generally dull edges do not function efficiently; cutting or acting takes more effort and is less responsive.

Second, edges function like boundaries. Athletes and people confront several ways of being at the edge. They grapple with the edge of their own talent, training, character or focus. Individuals also face the edge of the skills and training required to succeed in their endeavor whether sports or any professional capability. Individuals live at the edge where they rub against other competitors.  Finally individuals risk falling off the edge of their emotional, moral or professional lives.

When a person plays at the edge of their talent and energy, they marshal internal energy and attention. This internal organizing helps them function with maximum effort and efficiency. People at their edge push their skill and attention and energy. They see each achievement as a new boundary, a new edge to perform that they hone as an edge, but one that they struggle to surpass. Individuals perform flat out and they are always pushing themselves to get better at what they are doing. This level of acting can exhaust people quicker, but being at the edge keeps athletes and people more alert and functioning at high levels. Facing a competitor playing at their edge forces contenders to push themselves harder. Self-aware individuals know the risks they take by treading at their boundaries, but risk it to succeed and win.

A person cannot drive to the borderlands of their sport unless they thrust to the edge of their talent and effort. At the edge, the best athletes and minds develop new strategies, new skills, new training approaches to exploit the possibilities of the game and persons. Facing the best, taking risks, trying new ways or mastering old ways, constantly adapting to the other side’s moves and training, all involve living at the edge.

I am not talking about being “edgy” for the sake of being cool or hip or being “edgy” for the sake of style of calling attention to oneself. To keep your edge in performance, involves internal discipline, self-awareness, situational attention and risk taking.Being at the edge takes harsh honesty about one's own potential and effort.  It means the courage to fail and the resilience to get back up and try again. Competing at the edge entails remembering that no one in your field is standing still and you don’t get better by being comfortable.

Unfortunately falling of the edge can wreck a moment or a person or an execution. Playing at the edge is not the same as playing out of control, but it can easily evolve into out of control. Losing control like honing a blade so that it becomes too sharp but thinned and brittle, 

Keeping an edge requires self-knowledge. People who risk the edge need to know their limits but always be pushing slightly beyond them. Edges can loom as precipices that tempt folks to fall off. On the other hand, once a person achieves an edge and masters it, the edge becomes solid ground for them. They live and act, and soon enough the edge dulls. They take it for granted and live that way too often. Pushing to the edge or sharpening skills, requires endless recalibration of skill sets and character and what one can do. It means not only being self-aware of strengths but motivated intention to push them as well as compensating for weakness.

In a critical way playing at the edge can alert athletes when they need to pull back. People use the metaphor to climb a mountain to capture the drive and ability needed to play at the edge in any area. But mountain climbing is dangerous and people fail, start-over and fall off edges. Sometimes individuals discover edges we could once transverse are blocked or no longer within our skill set. This does not mean quit, but it involves self-assessing, changing focus, developing new or undervalued skills and character to keep playing and competing.

Falling off an edge can lead us to get back up and try again but it can also warn us to change paths and proficiencies.

At the same time keeping your edge can mean always looking for an edge on your opponents. This drives innovation and work ethics. But, left unchecked by integrity and strong rule enforcement can lead persons to cheat. It may mean using PEDs or figuring out ways to live at the boundary of the rules or push them until caught. The dynamic of the edge cuts both ways and takes integrity and strong support from peers and leaders to stay on the edge and not fall off.

Being at the edge creates its problems. Keeping the edge should not be confused with being “on edge.” We’ve all been there, some of us more than most.  You know the moment when a person is so tightly wound up that they startle or jump. They tighten up under stress or anticipation. The tightening narrows perception, cuts speed and reaction and dilutes situational awareness. People on edge overreact and often react to the wrong stimulus, it makes them vulnerable to fakes and tactical misdirection as well as undercutting fluid and smooth relations with their fellow teammates. It makes it harder to listen because a person on edge internally constricts their focus and filters out important information.

Managing and leading professionals who live at the edge requires a different approach then just managing those who are good or even very good, but living within their comfort zones. Managing egos, keeping team together and just refining skills around the edges makes good sense. But this leadership style does not lead to maximum performance but it will minimize errors and that can count for a lot during long haul seasons or professional actions. Eric Wedge the present manager of the Seattle Mariners sums it up in a very existential way. “You’ve got to play every day like it’s your last.” This creates a moral and psychological edge that needs to be managed and watched.

Life and performance at the edge is critical to highest achievement and professional growth. But edges cut both ways and can erode a player and force them over the boundary if the individual and their managers do not manage the moral and psychological balance needed to live at the edge.

Growth and achievement lie at the edge of potential and challenge.