"Politics and Sports" from the August 13, 1974 Door County Advocate
JIM ROBERTSON
JIM ROBERTSON
Politics and Sports
There is quite a parallel between sports and politics. Both involve rugged and often brutal contests and both sides play to win.
Both are often guilty of dirty or at the least unsportsmanlike conduct. Both engage in "under the table" handouts, whether known as campaign contributions in politics or recruiting bonuses in sports.
Both play especially hard to win. All's fair in love and war. Politics and sports are a combination of love and war. Even the church league plays to win.
So it is that we can draw a parallel between the resignation of Richard Nixon as president and an athletic coach or manager.
Nixon quit for what he said was the good of the country. How many coaches don't quit for what they say is for the good of the school or the good of the team?
Underneath, of course, are the many factors that lead to a coach's resignation, the disillusionment on the part of the fans (we the people) over his judgment and shortcomings and yes, what we might consider dirty play.
One CBS commentator said of Nixon's resignation that it was a culmination of dirty play on both sides, the paranoiac "get Nixon" advocates having fueled a paranoiac response from Nixon and his own team.
Just like in sports, when one team throws dirt in the face or a knee in the groin, the other team starts throwing it back.
While there are fanatics (shorten that to fans in sports) on both sides, the situation generally boils into a disenchantment from even the coach's own one-time followers that borders on a lynching. The coach has got to go.
When it reaches that sordid state of affairs, better he does go. The country, or the team , cannot get any better. Sides are chosen within the same camp where there should be unity and strength.
So the coach leaves and so does the president. A new one comes on and everybody pledges unity and cooperation, a new era.
And it often becomes just that as the new coach or the new president gets the cooperation and the unity that was denied the old. But the honeymoon doesn't last. It doesn't take long for the same old disenchantment, the same old paranoia to set in all over again.
Courtesy of the Door County Library Newspaper Archive