The Sports Pyramid

(Pre.S. - You'll need to read my previous blog for context.)

What is the scoring scale?
As I wrote Friday’s blog, I analyzed my theory that all sports are not equal. After I wrote Friday’s blog, I concluded that not all talents and skills are equal either. By applying the foundational principle of my whole theory (that versatility and translatability determine the level of sports and their athletes) to specific talent and skills, I came up with individual values for talents and skills by identifying the degree to which each translates to all sports. I surprised myself by concluding that coordination is the most versatile and therefore valuable athletic talent. My reasoning is that coordination translates well for every sport at nearly every position. Simply put: No sport exists that doesn’t require a certain degree of coordination. Likewise, I determined the values of other talents and skills by using the same criteria. The more sports a talent or skill is useful for to a high degree; the greater value it receives.

Coordination – 10 points
Speed – 9 points
Quickness – 9 points
Endurance/Stamina – 9 points
Agility – 8 points
Strength – 8 points
Hustle/Maximum Exertion – 7 points
Leaping Ability – 7 points
Size – 7 points
Swinging (Golf swing, baseball swing, cricket swing, tennis swing) – 6 points
All other skills (dribbling a soccer or basketball, throwing a football, skiing, driving a car, punching, etc…) – 5 points

The Nephilim are among us
Why is basketball the top sport? Because it requires every one of the major talents in abundance and is played internationally and available for everyone (all races and genders) to play. Those factors make basketball the purest sport and its athletes – generally speaking – the best athletes in the world. With a few exceptions (Frankensteins like Eric Montross, Greg Ostertag, Manute Bol and Gheorge Muresan), only the most elite of the elite athletes play NBA basketball. In fact, it may be the only sport where an average onlooker can predict if someone will play professionally 20 years before that someone is even born. All you have to do is look at someone’s parents. If they are not both/either extremely tall or extremely athletic, their child will almost certainly not be a basketball player.

That said, basketball players are born, not made. Prime example being me. As a creature looking increasingly similar to George Costanza every day, no amount of effort or hard work would have landed me in the NBA. Whereas, maybe if I would have been drilled everyday for three hours by a ruthless coach, I could have done the rings at the Olympics or maybe even played Division II football. Alternately, Lebron James is an experiment by God to make the perfect athlete. And in line with my theory that the best athletes are the ones whose skills translate the best to other sports, there is literally not one thing Lebron James could not do athletically, not one sport he could not have excelled at. If he would have grown up in Brazil, he would have been the best midfielder the world has ever seen. If Sweden, the best hockey forward ever.

That type of transferability of all-around athletic skill is more consistently the case with basketball players than players in any other sport, which makes sense because basketball requires every player to do a little bit of everything. Therefore, basketball, in my opinion is an easy selection as the top sport.

Am I biased?
Definitely, but I tried to keep that at a minimum in my evaluations. If I allowed my bias to dictate my perspective, I would have made football the top sport because it is my favorite as well as the dominant sport in my home region. Instead, I included soccer, which I know very little about, as the No. 2 sport, and hockey, also know nothing about, in my top 5.

Do I hate yankees?
No more than I hate confederates. As mentioned above, I did include hockey in my top 5. I also included figure skating in Tier 4 ahead of golf and car racing, two sports that are very popular in my home region. I did include most of the Winter Olympic sports in Tier 5, but only because most of them require only 1 or 2 talents and skills and therefore do not require their participants to be great athletes. I also put several Summer Olympic sports down there as well.

Why isn’t football No. 1?
Football is hard to assess with my scale. Yes, the game as a whole requires all of the major talents and several different skills (throwing, catching, tackling, punting, kicking, etc…), BUT not every player is required to do everything. For example, the skills required to be a punter are not the same skills required to be an offensive tackle. Likewise, the skills required to be a quarterback are not the same as the skills required to be a wide receiver. Unlike basketball, where centers and point guards perform the same tasks (dribbling, shooting, jumping, etc…) in varying degrees, it’s difficult to measure the athleticism of football players as a whole. If you measure the athleticism of specific position groups, wide receivers would possibly be even more athletic than basketball players BUT punters and kickers would probably be Tier 5. As a result, I don’t think it’s fair to put football in the discussion with basketball as the top sport.

Tier 2 and The Seclusion Deduction
Also, football receives a special 10-point penalty (The Seclusion Deduction) for its lack of international appeal and accessibility. So does hockey, the decathlon and lacrosse – which receives a double penalty. Each of these sports require most, if not all, of the major talents but they are only played by limited amounts of people. If a sport is not played by everyone, it’s difficult to determine the relative athletic skill of the people who do play. For example, if American football was widely played by Scandinavians, we might find that a lot of Scandinavians are better suited for the sport than the people who currently play it. Since no Scandinavians actually play the sport, it’s difficult to say that the players in the NFL are actually the best suited (although they are incredibly well-suited) in the world for their sport. The same example could also be used for hockey and lacrosse by substituting Southerners and urban youths for Scandinavians.

In contrast, since the entire world (all races and genders) plays basketball and soccer, it’s safe to assume the elite in both sports are actually the best suited for their respective sports in the world.

What about soccer?
The main difference between soccer and basketball is size. You don’t have to be huge to excel at soccer. Consequently, the average soccer player can’t excel at quite as many things as the average basketball player. However, that is about the only thing separating the two sports. Like basketball, every soccer player is required to do everything. They run. They jump. They have to be extremely coordinated to dribble. Have to be strong. They’re incredible athletes who, for the most part, could transfer their skills to high degrees in every other sport.

Up Next: The Best Don’t Always Win.

All sports aren't equal

Watching these Winter Olympics has drug up memories of an argument I once had with an ex-girlfriend. I am from the Mississippi Delta, and she is from Wisconsin. Her roommate is from Indiana. We were all three sitting together watching the last Winter Olympics at their apartment one night four years ago.

At some point, I don’t recall who exactly – commentator or yankee girl – but someone made reference to the Winter Olympic athletes being among the best in the world. I, being an SEC disciple and sports purist, took umbrage with the statement. “That’s ridiculous,” I said. “Snowboarding and figure-skating aren’t even real sports.” My ex and her roommate then proceeded to hurl all kinds of absurd claims at me: that Olympic snow-boarders are just as good athletes as professional football and basketball players, that they are relatively just as strong and fast, and then the trump card of “You couldn’t even dream of doing what they do.” I, ever-ready to throw out witty quips, replied “I wouldn’t want to do that sissy crap” and left.

I knew there was a vast gap of athletic talent between Lebron James and Shaun White, but I just didn’t know how to prove it. The argument to define “real sports” and “real athletes” has been going on forever with little progress. Trying to convince a redneck that NASCAR is not a sport is like trying to convince a modern art fan that Pollock is not an artist. And the same could be said for yankees and their winter sports. You just can’t do it. And you’re left with this nebulous ambiguity that allows for false claims of equality in regards to talents that clearly are not on the same level.

Eureka!!! (Call me Archimedes)

Whilst considering this dilemma following my argument with the ex and her roommate, I realized that sports purists had been approaching the argument all wrong. Instead of trying to define what sports are real and not, we should try to define the degree of purity or the verisimilitude, if you will, of each sport. Don’t tell anyone that something isn’t a real sport. Let curlers call themselves athletes. Heck, even allow freeze tag to be called a sport. Just don’t allow anyone to put those games on the same level as basketball or soccer.

“How?” you may ask. “By applying a simple standard,” I reply.

Said simple standard is this: The purest sports are those which require the most talents and skills that translate well into the largest variety of other sports. For example, golf requires endurance, hand-eye coordination, focus and mental toughness. Soccer requires all four of those (substitute foot-eye coordination for hand-eye coordination) and speed, agility, strength and quickness. Therefore, both golf and soccer are sports, but soccer is purer. And generally speaking (Tiger being the only known exception), soccer players are to be considered better athletes than golfers, because the skills they have equip them to perform better in more sports.

However, if you’d like to be completely accurate on an individual-athlete basis, apply the same standard to specific players as you would to entire sports. Evaluate the range of talents and skills an athlete has that translate into other sports. Andre Johnson is fast, strong, quick, agile, coordinated, big (size is a talent) and has the ability to exert himself to his maximum capacity (also a talent). I’m pretty sure, if given proper time and instruction, he would excel at any sport. On the other hand, Bode Miller has coordination, balance, and the ability to ski (a skill instead of a talent but should be factored in nonetheless). I haven’t seen the guy try the high jump, but I’m assuming his talent base and skill set would not translate as well as Johnson’s do into other sports. Ergo, Johnson is a superior athlete to Bode.

Soothing Perspective

Think about it. On the playgrounds around the world, who are considered the best athletes? The fat, slow kid who can make a Frisbee act like a boomerang or the kid who excels in every sport he plays? Obviously the latter. Growing up has deceived us into believing that the quality of sports and their athletes depends on their level of public acceptance. As a result, if colorguard becomes a popular Olympic sport, some misguided people will likely make the claim that flag-twirlers are just as gifted as Michael Jordan “in their own way.”

“Nonsense,” I protest. “Nonsense!!!”

The whole basis of sports is competition. If we cannot say one athlete or team is better than the other, there really is no point in playing. I’m not advocating a lack of sportsmanship. I’m not writing this to bash snowboarders and golfers as wimps. Quite contrary, I am arguing for objectivity that enables the best athletes to be recognized as such and the not-as-good athletes (of whom I am one) to be accepted in their statuses. Sportsmanship is most evident in humility, not in a false recognition of equality (i.e. The quarterback on the losing team displays good sportsmanship in acknowledging that “the better team won” as opposed to being like Matt Leinart after the 2006 National Championship game.)

In my next blog, I will reveal The Sports Pyramid, which rates the purity of specific sports by dividing them each into one of five categories.

Let us be rid of this foolishness!!!

P.S. – I realize that this argument could be misconstrued and applied to life as a whole and be compared to Hitler-esque philosophy. Please don't do this. Sports, although symbolic of life in many ways, are not life themselves. They are games. By defining their purity and the talent level of the athletes who play them, I am in no way trying to assess the value of the athletes as people. So, please keep this theory in context. The world did not do well with the Nazis.

P.S.P.S. - It's time for lunch.