Word: sportsmanship
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Americans of course cherish sportsmanship, which asks the loser to leap gracefully over the net and shake the hand of the man he would probably prefer to throttle. As Sportswriter Grantland Rice once put it with classic corn: "For when the One Great Scorer comes to mark against your name,/ He writes?not that you won or lost? but how you played the game." Rice probably borrowed this formula from the legend that Britons play to play rather than to win. In fact, British soccer fans are notoriously sore losers, prone to riot. As for U.S. "sportsmanship," it mainly seems...
Certainly this exercise has value. History contains a rich catalogue of loser statements, whose authors can be ranked according to the sportsmanship code and assigned appropriate moral victories. Even so, the loser himself well knows that he remains a loser; only by heroic mental gyrations can the also-ran restage the race in his favor. Obviously, triumph and defeat are defined by society rather than the individual. If a Ted Williams bats .400, for instance, the grandstand regards a .300 batter as a loser?and so does...
...didn't relate his score correctly on a little piece of paper. Is there any doubt that Roberto de Vicenzo had the same score as Bob Goalby or that his play merited a playoff round to determine the just winner? This gross injustice is a mockery of sportsmanship...
...award is presented annually to the senior on the swimming team who best demonstrates the qualities of leadership, sportsmanship, and team cooperation exemplified by the late Harold S. Ulen, Harvard's first swimming coach...
Cowles produced great players--many more stars than those listed above. But he was also devoted to Harvard. He turned down more lucrative offers elsewhere to go where athletics and sportsmanship went together. Cowles was responsible for a rule change which made squash less of a contact sport and more of a test of skill...