Love of winning is ruining sports
There is a cancer in America. It is the overemphasis on winning, especially in American sports. It used to be that Americans played by the motto of it is not whether you win or lose but how you play the game. That sportsmanship motto has been completely destroyed by the win-at-all-costs ethos of the NFL’s Vince Lombardi and Al Davis. There is no better example of this perversity than the way many Atlanta Falcons fans and the media reacted to the Falcons’ loss in the Super Bowl. The Falcons had a great year. They had a very exciting team that made it to the Super Bowl. There is much to celebrate, yet Falcons fans were devastated by the loss in the Super Bowl. Sports should be about having fun and sportsmanship. Dynasties are terrible for sports. The domination by UConn of women’s basketball has made that sport almost unwatchable. Congress should pass a law that mandates that each team that wins a title must be excluded from the playoffs the next year and if they come back and win the third year they must sit out the playoffs the next two years after which the cycle should be repeated. It is time to de-emphasize winning and emphasize fun and sportsmanship.
WALTER KEITH, BROOKHAVEN
Bookman seems to have short memory
So, Jay Bookman thinks that “Trump is in the process of destroying the aura of the presidency.” No, Jay, that process already took place back in November 1995, when Bill Clinton used the Oval Office to engage in adulterous sex acts with a 21-year-old White House intern. Look, Trump is no angel and his tweets are stupid, but Bookman’s selective, righteous indignation over Trump’s “demeaning of the institution” is absurd.
KEN BELL, ATLANTA
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