In America, it's win or go home

 

                This ESPN article was just the type of thing I was looking for on sports culture in the United States of America. While many agree with the idea of the “wussification” of America especially in youth sports, this article claims that the sports culture for at least college and professional sports is winner take all. In the last 50 years the sports organizations have been slowly but surely eliminating the consolation and third place games. College basketball and the NFL both have eliminated the consolation games from their playoff system because the only important thing to the athletes is winning the whole thing. Since Vince Lombardi coached and preached winning the culture of professional sports has completely changed. The best players now are the players that can win championships, Lebron James was highly scrutinized because he was the best overall player, but he couldn’t win a championship, until this past year of course. Even though most consolation games have been taken away, there are still many out there, including the World Cup and the Olympics. Many have called for the restructure of the bowl system in college football, and that is related to the fact that all the bowl games except for the national championship are basically consolation games. That is a main reason that many people are calling for a playoff system in college football. In America only one thing really matters in professional sports, winning.

                This was a very well written article, and I think a very important article to my research on sports culture in America. The article includes a link to learn more about the other and other articles he has written. The article appeared in ESPN the magazine and there was a link leading to that issue of the magazine. I agree with the article and I was not surprised to see the connection between consolation games and bowl games. I for one am a strong supporter of a college football playoff system, especially with the recent domination of the national championship game by one team, Alabama. This article reminds me of the movie Talladega Nights the ballad of Ricky Bobby, where Will Ferrell took to heart the phrase, “If you ain't first, you're last”. This saying definitely reflects the attitude of many professional and college athletes in America.

 Cyphers, Luke. "In America, It's Win or Go home." ESPN.com. N.p., 23 Mar. 2011. Web. 05 Apr. 2013.