Sports and Sportsmanship
Essay No. 01
It is an indisputable fact that games play an important part in our lives. Not only are they essential for the development of our bodies but are responsible for inculcating in us certain qualities too, for example, a healthy spirit of competition, a sense of discipline, courage and above all, sportsmanship.
Sportsmanship is the highest ideal a sportsperson should strive for. It does not matter whether you win or lose the game but how you play it. You should participate in the game in a fair spirit, without any thought of breaking the rules or using unjust means to win.
Sportsmanship also implies accepting defeat with a smile and conceding victory to the better team or player. If you have lost today, you may, with hard work and perseverance, win tomorrow, so neither be boastful about victory nor depressed over defeat.
Nowadays, sportsmanship is on the decline. The teams are not generous towards each other, and sometimes they take out their frustration on the umpire. At times it is the crowd which shows unsporting behaviour and matches have to be stopped halfway due to hooliganism and rowdiness.
Whenever we play games or participate in athletics we should keep in mind Rudyard Kipling’s words— “If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster, and treat those two impostors just the same…”
Essay No. 02
Sportsmanship
Sportsmanship means working in the spirit of healthy competition, for the achievement of a common goal. It also means team spirit which means the qualities of discipline, punctuality, obedience and cooperation.
Achieving something through co-operative and disciplined efforts means sportsmanship and it is how the goal can be achieved and not who achieves it.
Games should be played not for victory alone but for the sake of game also. A sportsman should not feel depressed in defeat and not lose his head over victory, because it is a collective defeat or victory.
Sportsmanship demands discipline. One should not hit one’s opponent below the belt and should never restore to unfair means to win a match. He should have a balanced mind to play a fair game. Sportsmanship also demands that one should obey one’s leader in every circumstance for he knows what is best under a given circumstance.
Since the world is like a ground over which the game of life is played sportsmanship is one of the greatest quality of life. The games lessen their intensity and joy doubles if we take life with the spirit of sportsmanship.
People who lack sportsmanship are intolerant, self-centered and narrow minded and cannot work for other’s good which is a sad thing.
In the final analysis sportsmanship is definitely a quality worth developing in oneself.