SPORT 1913 - 2013

venues in which we can observe champions as heroes and experience the ‘sacred’, moments of exciting significance, while leaving behind the profaneness of ordinary life (Maguire et al. 2002). Society thus needs its champions as he- roes. They perform the manifest function of achieving sporting success for themselves and their local community and nation. But they also perform a more latent role: they are meant to embody the elements that a society values most. As idealised creations, they pro- vide inspiration, motivation, direction and meaning for people’s lives. Champions as he- roes act to unify a society, bringing people to- gether with a common sense of purpose and values. That is how modern sport developed, especially in its gendered forms. Pioneers of the nineteenth century linked sport to male muscular Christianity: unselfishness, self-re- straint, fairness, gentlemanliness and moral excellence. This was itself supplementing tra- ditional notions of chivalry: honour, decency, courage and loyalty. There are, however, threats to the mani- fest and latent functions of champions as he- roes. This stems from issues associated with authenticity and integrity. The status of the champion relies upon the authenticity of the contest. If the contest is tarnished by corrup- tion, cheating, betting scandals or when rep- resenting a nation or system regarded as an enemy, then the hero is diminished in our eyes. The contest is no longer either a mutual quest for excellence or societies forum in which communal self-revelation occurs. This

lack of authenticity also occurs when the sport becomes too make-believe, is rigged or be- comes too predictable. Professional wrestling may produce ‘champions’ but they are not taken seriously, and they are not our heroes (Stone 1971). The champion as hero also, as noted, embodies the elements that a society holds most dear. But, the integrity of the champion may also be undermined in several ways. The champion may be a flawed genius – either due to the fact that they suffer from hubris and feel they need not dedicate them- selves to the level and intensity of preparation and performance required, and/or because their private lives intrude on their status as heroes. Here, the example of George Best springs to mind. Our idealized image of him as a footballer is shattered, though in the case of Best, we still mourn his death in a profound expression of grief. In addition, our champi- ons may be less heroes and more celebrities – they are famous but not heroic. David Beck- ham may be seen in this light (Cashmore 2004). If this be the case, such fame is short lived and they fail one of the tests of a cham- pion as hero – the test of time. In order to un- derstand why champions mean so much to us and what impact they have, we have to con- sider the role sport plays in society. Sport, then, is both a separate world, and a suspension of everyday life, yet it is also highly symbolic of the society in which it ex- ists. In the context of sport we can both expe- rience a form of exciting significance that we rarely, if ever, encounter in our daily lives, and

also conduct a symbolic dialogue with fellow participants and spectators that reveals things about ourselves and others. We are laid bare in sport in a way which we cover up in everyday life. Sport is a modern morality play that re- veals fundamental truths about us as individ- uals, our societies and our relations with oth- ers. Sport, then, moves us emotionally and matters to us socially (Maguire et al. 2002). That sport performs these functions relates to several reasons that dovetail with and high- lights the role of champions. One of the principal features of sport is the construction and consumption of pleasur- able forms of excitement (Elias and Dunning, 1986). People enjoy various kinds of spontane- ous, elementary, unreflective yet pleasurable excitement in increasingly rule-governed and risk-averse societies. In sport, whether as par- ticipant or spectator, people quest for this con- trolled decontrolling of emotions. Here, emo- tions flow freely and in a manner that elicits or imitates the excitement generated in real life situations. Sports, then, are mimetic ac- tivities that provide a ‘make-believe’ separate setting that allows emotions to flow more eas- ily. This excitement is elicited by the creation of tensions that can involve imaginary or con- trolled ‘real’ danger, mimetic fear and/or plea- sure, sadness and/or joy. This controlled de- controlling of excitement allows for different moods to be evoked in this make-believe set- ting that are the siblings of those aroused in real-life situations. Our champions are identi- fied with – in terms of their technical accom-

28