Hands Across The Sportsfield

Say, remember "Hands Across America," that time in the eighties when they tried to have a line of people holding hands all the way across the U.S.?  As charity/political events go, it was well ahead of the Million Man March, but it was no AIDS Quilt.  I had to look up what cause it was supporting (answer at the end.)  Anyway, this post has nothing to do with that; the title just fit.

By a strange, almost interesting coincidence, sports media on both sides of the Atlantic were making a big deal over potential handshakes before football games.  If you're unfamiliar with these incidents, here's a recap:

In the U.S., the controversy was the game between San Fransisco and Detroit.  Last year, head coaches Jim Harbaugh and Jim Schwartz got into a heated arguement after the post game handshake.  This year though, they seemed perfectly amicable.

And in Britain, with Queens Park Rangers playing Chelsea, there would be an awkward moment during the traditional pre-game handshakes when Anton Ferdinand of QPR encountered Chelsea's John Terry, since last year when Ferdinand (who is black) accused Terry (white) of using a racial slur during a game last year.  Terry offered his hand, but Ferdinand spurned him.

And now back to your regularly-scheduled blogging:

What got me was just how much attention these incidents got.  The one on this side of the pond seemed to drive commentators and analysts giddy with anticipation about what could happen.  It was actually invigorating to see them get disappointed when nothing happened.  They are after all, only a side show for the main attraction.  What they do feel like is something out of a reality show.  But here's the point that the sportscasters are missing: if people wanted Reality TV, that's what they'd be watching.

Sports seems like Reality Television:  It's the same basic premise of real people dropped into an unreal situation with artificial challenges.  But the attraction is quite different.  I'm not a big reality TV fan, but the impression I get is that the challenges the contestants face are secondary to the interaction between the contestants, and the way they face the challenges.

In sports, however, it's pretty much all about the challenge itself, with little consideration to the participants' personalities.  Sports fans will cheer for pretty much any otherwise despicable person as long as they win.  Their consideration of athlete personality is little more than judging the amount of anger and focus.  Hockey fans do go a little further, talking about whether players have "character," but some of the players they claim have character are kind of semi-psychotic, so I'm still not convinced of their ability to judge personality.

So look, sportscasters, stick to covering the game.  The only way we can truly combine sports and Reality TV is if they take my advice and make the Pro Bowl into an episode of Survivor.

And I almost forgot: Hands Across America took place in 1986, and was in aid of hunger and homelessness.