Your Athletic License Please

The earliest known instance of crowd violence at a sporting event took place in 532 BC in ancient Constantinople. Two chariot racing factions, the Blues and the Greens, were involved in riots which lasted for a week. Nearly half the city was burned or destroyed in addition to tens of thousands of deaths. This unruly, destructive, aggressive, bullying, often called "hooliganism" is becoming a more frequent behavior pattern associated with rival sports fans, who also vent ethnic and/or political animosities within these encounters.

Blame It on Ken Burns

War on Sports was inspired somewhat by the Ken Burns film “Baseball”. Burns, a reknowned documentary film maker, presents a well researched film that chronicles the early years of the New England cotton mill era. This was concurrent with the birth of industrialization in the United States. At this time 75% of the staff in these dangerous workplaces were overworked women and children who toiled in hazardous proximity to the spinning loom machinery.

Throwing The Game

“Taking a fall," “Throwing a game,” “Fixing,” “Fraud,” whatever one calls it the manipulation of the outcome of sporting events is big business. Last year 15 men were arrested in Germany as suspects in the fixing of football (soccer) games in 15 different European countries. The men arrested in Germany are Croatians but other arrests of multiple suspects have occurred in Turkey, Bosnia, Switzerland, England, the Netherlands, Hong Kong, Malaysia, and the Philippines. 

Feets Don't Fail Me Now!

Taekwondo fighters participating in the Asian Games wear custom socks equipped with electronic sensors. The sensors permit an electronic scoring system to tally the point count whenever a contact is made on an opponent’s sensors. If a competitor is wearing more than the permitted number of sensors in his socks the additional sensors that register his contact made by foot strikes is dishonestly increased and can potentially boost that fighter's score unfairly.

Ethicality in Middle School Sports

This popular YouTube video shows a U.S. middle school football team executing a most controversial “trick” play during a regional championship game. The hackles of sportswriters and broadcast commentators have been raised by questions concerning the play’s technical legality and ethical correctness. Concern over these issues immediately attached itself to this well publicized story and continue to trail it to this day.