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Summary

We asked Americans to choose the phrase that best described their sports philosophy and 52 percent (a little over half) said “it’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how you play the game.”

A lot of times leaders in a lot of settings, ministry leaders, church leaders we tend to jump to sports analogies and military analogies fast. This is a good reminder that 9 out of 10 Americans are saying, “There’s more to life than sports and there’s more to sports than winning.”

• Young adults, the ones who would’ve grown up getting participation trophies, actually are the ones who are most likely to say, winning is the only thing.

Fifty percent of Americans believe that good sportsmanship is rarely exhibited in American that sports today.

• Young adults who are 18 to 24, those college age are actually least likely to agree with that statement.
• I do think that bad sportsmanship is easier to identify. Somebody shaking hands after a game isn’t something that you take note of, but somebody screaming at a referee or getting into a physical altercation sticks in your mind. I think that’s part of it, too, is that the more memorable ones are bad sportsmanship sometimes.

Be sure to Tweet your questions and comments to us: @LifewayResearch and individually: @smcconn, @statsguycasey, and @lizettebeard. Join us next time for another edition of Keep Asking.

(See the full transcript for the episode –with links–on next page)