“Bread crumbs”(perhaps how you got here)

Let’s see what’s going on in sports around Arizona these days. And let’s stick to “professional” sports: baseball, basketball, and football.

First, the Arizona Cardinals (American football) are doing fairly well. Last season they made it almost to the very top - they got in the “Super Bowl”. And lost, but not disgracefully. In their last game, the Cardinals did well under the guidance of veteran quarterback Kurt Warner, playing despite suffering a concussion only a few games earlier.

Second, the Suns, the oldest professional “major league” team in Arizona, are doing fairly well, but are in a slump lately. Their star reserve, Leandro Barbosa, is injured and likely to be out for a while, at least until Christmas.

Third, the Diamondbacks, our beloved (well, sort of) baseball team made a huge trade that takes away two “first-round draft choices”, Max Scherzer and Daniel Schlereth, and brings two starting pitchers, Edwin Jackson and Ian Kennedy. At least in the rest of America, this trade is viewed as a disaster for the Diamondbacks.

Why mention all this?

The answer lies not quite in consideration of the names and teams, but in thinking about “professionalism”. Is it the same in every sport? Do the sports differ? If so, how?

A “profession”, as I was taught in accounting classes taken more years ago than I care to admit, is an occupation that polices itself, has rigorous standards for entry and practice, and possesses mystique or at least prestige.

If one listens to many sportscasters (not just about Arizona teams), one often hears phrases like, “He’s a true professional” or “He’s a professional - he holds himself accountable”.

Baloney. Accountability means someone risks something in case of failure. Real accountability would mean something like a significant pay cut for poor performance or maybe being released from the team. It does not mean mere whining about “our performance tonight was unprofessional and we expect to be accountable for that”.

In general, professional sports do not have this kind of accountability, although occasionally a poorly-performing player will be released or sent to the minor leagues.

The real question is whether the team (and the fans) can rely on a certain minimum level of performance every time a player is called on. A surgeon, for example, is expected to perform the agreed operation whenever he undertakes it; an accountant is held to a minimum standard of due care and compliance with the applicable accounting standards. But to say that you are a professional player in any sport merely means that you get paid (openly - many colleges pay the athletes that supposedly represent them, but the payments are disguised).

In America (and elsewhere) “professional” athletes often get paid amazing sums of money. The New York Yankees, perhaps the highest-salaried professional team, pay their players something on the order of $200 million per year (or more). There are about fifty state governments in the United States today that would dearly love to have that $200 million. One can argue that the high pay contributes prestige to professional sports. Maybe so, but players like Alex Rodriguez (Yankees) or Kobe Bryant (Los Angeles Lakers, basketball) make immense sums of money, yet are not held up as role models.

That’s not prestige or mystique.

Can we rely on a certain level of performance from these wealthy athletes? Hardly ever. Not in the short term. Even true models of consistency, such as the Yankees’ magnificent shortstop, Derek Jeter, or the Suns’ Steve Nash (perhaps the best passer ever to play basketball) have bad nights.

The real test of performance is in the long term. Derek Jeter has been a bulwark of the Yankees since he took the field for the first time. Steve Nash has been, season after season, the moral and intellectual center of the teams for which he has played. They’re true professionals. Not perfect, but in the long run highly reliable.

“The long run”, by the way, is what makes NBA basketball and Major League Baseball such grueling tests of professionalism. Players that can play a whole season (about six months long) in one of these sports and do well (with only a few minor lapses) day after day are true professionals. A bit over a decade ago, a man named Cal Ripken Junior set a record in baseball for most consecutive games played: 2,632. This represents more than sixteen seasons of playing every day. While one can argue that he perhaps ought to have been held out on occasion because of some injury or mere exhaustion, the streak is an amazing feat of endurance. He was, for every one of those games, a major league player. Perhaps he wasn’t the most talented, but he was there, every day.

The lengths of their seasons set professional basketball and baseball apart. When a team wins a championship in those sports, it’s fair to say that the triumph was no fluke. American football is different. Even in the NFL, supposedly the highest level of the sport, the season is only 16 games long (with some teams making the “playoffs” that can go on for quite a while after the “regular season” is over). Flukes happen in that game. They often have a big effect on a season.

Because of the violence of American football, there is a high injury toll; players go beyond “accountability”. They play when hurt, often with disastrous consequences for their lives after football. Kurt Warner’s concussion was not an isolated example. It is unthinkable for a whole weekend of NFL football games to pass without at least a few injuries, some of which might be serious.

I once had what might be called “inside” knowledge of a college’s athletic programs. I was aware that the football team brought in more money than any other team - and that it cost more. American football teams are not only rarely on the field (in the highest level of college football, the season is around 12 games long) and have high injury rates, they also are amazingly expensive to field. A basketball team can win a championship with five or six good players and another half dozen or so in reserve. A baseball team at the major league level has 25 players, of whom nine take the field to start the game. A college football team may “suit up” as many as ninety players. Professional football teams, counting the “taxi squad”, are roughly the same size.

Conclusion: American football, for all its color, is not a very good sport. It is violent, injury-prone, and expensive. But most of all, despite the more or less laudable efforts of players like Kurt Warner, it is not a true test of professionalism. One or two games is not a good test. Even sixteen is not impressive. Interesting is this: the impoverished (and endangered) WNBA, a women’s league that is the kept creature of the NBA, last season had the Phoenix Mercury, who arguably were the best team ever to play their sport. The Mercury beat three very good teams to win a championship. I can imagine the sneers of many fans, especially of American football. I remember once hearing a fellow say “I’d rather watch paint dry than women’s basketball”. Rubbish. Professionalism, courage, and devotion are what they are no matter what bodies take the field or run on the court. There’s a time and a place to think about the physiological differences between men and women, but when the game is on, that’s not the time.

And this: the lessons of players like Cal Ripken, Jr, Steve Nash, and others, is that professionalism contains more than just showing up. It means playing not just with injuries, but playing well even when fatigued or discouraged. Such professionalism includes above all not just “performance”, but effort. Kurt Warner’s effort is praiseworthy - but it took place in a sport that has no real test of professionalism. It has only color, violence, and injuries. He has given his all in a sport that does not deserve such devotion.

 All text on this page is the work of J W Durham and is licensed only under terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Other licensing terms may be available. E-mail me