When social sport becomes a serious business

I’ve always kept a pretty level head in the sporadic social sport of my adult years, but being yelled at to calm down by a guy who’d just collected me with a swinging arm to the jaw?

In a game of basketball, no less. I have to admit it had me ranting like a lunatic.

I’m not the most skilled verbal combatant at the best of times – just ask the ladies who’ve torn me to shreds in any verbal stoush I’ve ever contested. Combine that with being slightly dazed, and the best I could come up with was “You just caught me with a swinging jaw [sic] to the jaw and you want me to calm down?”

Granted, I’d smashed his knee pretty hard as we contested the ball and ended up sprawled all over the court, and granted the situation of the match was pressure cooker stuff. Four points in the contest, 30 seconds on the clock, and the extremely high stakes of Tuesday night social basketball supremacy at Redfern’s National Centre of Indigenous Excellence on the line.

In the end, we got the win. And winning is everything, right?

Apparently it is, given some of the white line fever I’ve witnessed over the years. Every match seems to feature at least one player who takes their social sport very seriously indeed.

Presumably these are the ones who never did quite crack that first-grade squad they’d been eyeing off in their youth, and they’re yet to have children of their own to live through vicariously. Or they’re just angry at their lot in life and need to express some rage.

I’ve always played hard but fair, be it basketball (at which I’m terrible at), touch football, or indoor soccer. Well, there was that time in my first ever game of the latter when I slide-tackled a girl and got told that wasn’t entirely fair, but I was naïve to the nuances of the game.

Hell, I figured if it was good enough for Kevin Muscat then it was good enough for me. (NB – aforementioned girl walked off the court and has no doubt enjoyed a happy and rewarding life since, while my slide tackling career ended then and there.)

So where do these ultra-competitive and occasionally abusive (to opponents, match officials and even teammates) social sport psychopaths come from? At what stage does verbalising cross the line from playful sledging (and I’m as guilty as anyone, though I’m generally sledging myself) to outright douchebaggery?

When you’re giving someone a mouthful after their face has interrupted the free passage of your fist through the night air, there’s a chance you’ve crossed the line from competitive to tosser.

The crowds at Redfern on a Tuesday aren’t far off what the Kings pull (joking NBL heavies, bring back the Bullets and all is forgiven), but this is several rungs below the minors and needs to be treated accordingly.

Unless your team jags its first ever win a couple of games into its second season. In that case, you should take whatever is thrown at you on the chin and savour the moment.