Room at the Table

Bearing Positive Witness to the Accomplishments of Others

Photo by Rathbone Images (2024)

If you’re at all “online” you’ve probably seen recent posts about what appears to be the USA men’s hockey team laughing at the USA women’s hockey team. As such, there are plenty of people talking about misogyny, locker room talk, and degrading female athletes. I’m not going to argue that those things don’t exist (they do), but I want to take a little bit of a different approach and talk about something that’s been brewing in me for awhile: bearing witness to the accomplishments of others.

As the men’s hockey team put on display, bearing witness can take a negative turn. But it doesn’t just happen on a national platform. Demeaning and degrading others to prop up oneself seems less and less like a cultural bug and more like a cultural feature. Cruelty seems to be the point. This can happen for all the reasons listed above, but it’s not just a male vs. female problem. There are plenty of times I’ve heard a form of, “It was just a joke” from other females. It’s not just a “sports problem” either, but for the scope of this article, that’s the focus.

Current of Scarcity

So often – from youth sports all the way to the Olympic games – there’s an underlying current of scarcity. I don’t know how else to describe it. But being a former coach as well as having kids participating in middle school and high school ventures, it’s something I’m tuned into. This is what I mean: Instead of celebrating the achievements of others, we find some way to demean or degrade them. Instead of lifting others up, we belittle and mock. There are plenty of possible root causes including just being plain ‘ole mean, but I want to explore another possibility. Could it be fear? Not an external fear of the individual being mocked, but an internal fear that extending praise outside of oneself and one’s own team will mean there’s no room for me. It seems we often operate out of scarcity and fear that there won’t be any accolades left for the individual, or the individual’s team, if they’re wasted on someone else.

An example that’s near to my heart currently is the negative way some approach cheerleading in my town’s local district. It’s no secret that the squad is considered an activity by the district, not a sport. The cheerleaders are well-aware of this designation. They don’t compete, so they aren’t a sport. I get that at some points there must be these sorts of distinctions, but the real rub is how often “you’re not a sport” is used to belittle the students on the squad, which currently includes two of my own children. I’ll admit, this makes me angry, but bear with me as that’s not where I’m headed. Sport or not, the local squad puts in the work. They don’t compete, but they’re top-notch in our league and beyond. Every day they lift people. Every day they fly. Every day they hone skills and display athleticism. They’re good. But instead of those accomplishments being celebrated among peers, they’re often met with the reminder that they’re not reeeeaaaalllly a sport.

Room at the Table

With my own history, I don’t always have a lot of margin to give the benefit of the doubt. My go-to is assuming the comments are rooted in purposeful meanness and bullying: “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.” But fear can drive the heart and mouth, too. In a lot of ways, sports degradation is like a cafeteria scene in a show or movie where someone is looking for a seat and everyone else either doesn’t make eye contact, or gives an all-out glare while moving a stack of belongings into the empty space saying, “this seat’s taken.”

But it doesn’t have to be that way.

Can you imagine what it would be like, instead, if we put a positive spin on bearing witness to others? If we pulled out a chair and welcomed others in? What could a community gain from lifting others instead of crushing? What would it be like to tell someone good job and mean it, even if it looks like sharing a spotlight?

When it comes to high school cheerleading, for example, there’s room to appreciate the athleticism and skill it takes to be the caliber of squad they are and support and celebrate the efforts and achievements of whatever sports are currently ongoing. It’s not a competition. Everyone is unique and has specific God-given ways to fit within a community. There’s room at the table to encourage and celebrate this diversity of talents among a student body — they’re all part of the same broader team, after all.

Going back to the national spotlight, I can equally celebrate the prowess of the USA women’s hockey team who – if my math is mathing – have won medals in every Olympics they’ve competed in since women’s hockey became recognized as an Olympic sport in 1998 and be thrilled for the men’s team that won gold for the first time since 1980’s “Miracle on Ice.”

There are enough places at the table to acknowledge that cheerleaders who lift, fly, stunt, jump and perform are athletes whether they score points or not, just as there are enough places at the table for each and every member of the USA hockey teams – men’s and women’s. In that case, there are enough gold medals to go around.