“All sports,”wrote the German scholar Carl Diem on the
very first page of his two-volume history of sports,“began in cult.” This is an overstatement, but Diem was
right to remind our more or less secular age that many
sports began as religious ceremonies and many others
have acquired ritualistic aspects. A ritual can be defined as any regularly repeated action that is felt by the
actor to be significant beyond its material purpose.
Sacrificing a heifer on the altar of the goddess Athena
was a religious ritual, even if the meat was subsequently eaten; slaughtering a steer at the Chicago
stockyard is a very different kind of action. Although
the most important rituals are communal events of
shared significance, like the inauguration of a president, people also have their private rituals, meaningful
to them and to no one else, like the wearing of red
socks. Within the realm of sports, a second distinction
is useful. Sports events can be associated with rituals
that are not, strictly speaking, necessary. If no one sang
“The Star-Spangled Banner” before the first pitch of a
baseball game, the players would nonetheless be playing baseball. Sports can also be rituals, which is very
different. The ancient runners who raced the length of
the stadium at Olympia performed a religious act in
honor of Zeus. Without the presence of the god in the
minds of the runners and the spectators, there might
have been an athletic contest, but that contest would
not have been a part of the Olympic Games. We can
speak, in short, of sports with ritual and sports as ritual. We must acknowledge, however, that many sports
events are both. In practice, it is often difficult to distinguish between the two.
There is no better example of sports as ritual than
the pre-Columbian stickball game played by the tribes
of the southeastern United States. The earliest reference to the game by a European was by Pierre François
Charlevoix, who observed the Creek version of the
game in 1721. In all probability, Charlevoix witnessed a
ceremony that was centuries if not millennia old. Stick-ball changed very little between 1721 and the early
19th century, when the ethnographic painter George
Catlin visited the area and recorded his impressions in
his Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs, and
Conditions of the North American Indians (1844).
Resembling modern lacrosse, which grew from the
Canadian version of stickball, the game played by the
Creeks, Choctaws, and Cherokees was a contest between two teams, each using webbed sticks to hurl a
small ball across their opponents’ goal line. Villages
were matched against one another and there were also
intracommunal contests. Although women had their
own very similar ball games, only men played ritual
stickball. Each player submitted to strict dietary prohibitions based on religious considerations. “The Cherokee Ball Play,” an essay published in 1890 in American
Anthropologist by the ethnographer James Mooney,
provides fascinating details.
Mooney reported that the Cherokee participants
“must not eat the flesh of a rabbit . . . because the rabbit is a timid animal, easily alarmed and liable to lose
its wits when pursued by the hunter. Hence the player
must abstain from it, lest he too should become disconcerted and lose courage in the game. He must also
avoid the meat of the frog . . . because the frog’s bones
are brittle and easily broken.” The dietary taboo lasted
for exactly twenty-eight days prior to the contest because four and seven were sacred numbers.As in many
ritual sports, the most important taboo was against
sexual intercourse. Thirty days of abstinence preceded
the game, a good deal longer than the period stipulated
for modern athletes by their superstitious coaches.
Men whose wives were pregnant were thought to be endangered by pollution. They were not allowed to take
part in the Cherokee stickball game.
The players spent the night before the game sequestered in a sacred precinct under the supervision of
medicine men who carefully prepared them for the ritual encounter. Of the Choctaw medicine men, Catlin
wrote that they were “seated at the point where the ball
was to be started.” While the players danced and
“joined in chants to the Great Spirit,” the medicine men
smoked pipes as a form of prayer. Kendall Blanchard,
whose Mississippi Choctaws at Play (1981) is our best
modern source, notes that these “ritual experts . . . administered special medicine to the players, treated
equipment, manipulated weather conditions for the
day of the planned event, and appealed to the supernatural world for assistance.” The night before the
game, the bodies of the players were painted and appropriately adorned for appearance before the Great
Spirit. In Catlin’s words, “In every ball-play of these
people, it is a rule . . . that no man shall wear moccasins
on his feet, or any other dress than his breechcloth
around his waist, with a beautiful bead belt, and a ‘tail’
made of white horsehair or quills, and a ‘mane’ on the
neck, of horsehair dyed of various colors.”
Mooney has a detailed account of the Cherokee ritual
dance that was performed the night before the game.
The dancers are the players of the morrow, with
seven women, representing the seven Cherokee
clans. The men dance in a circle around the fire,
chanting responses to the sound of a rattle carried
by another performer, who circles around on the
outside, while the women stand in line a few feet
away and dance to and fro, now advancing a few
steps toward the men, then wheeling and dancing
away from them, but all the while keeping time to
the sound of the drum and chanting the refrain to
the ball songs sung by the drummer, who is seated
on the ground on the side farthest from the
fire. . . . The women are relieved at intervals by
others who take their places, but the men dance in
the same narrow circle the whole night.
At intervals, the players left the dance to accompany
the medicine men to the river bank for elaborate ceremonies with sacred red and black beads representing
the players and their opponents.
Among the other pregame rituals described by
Mooney was scarification, performed by a medicine
man with a seven-toothed comb made from the leg
bone of a turkey. Twenty-eight scratches (four times
seven) were made on each arm above the elbow and
then below, on each leg above the knee and then below.
More gashes were made on the breast and the back.
When the medicine man was done, the player bled
from nearly 300 wounds.
The game itself was played on a field without strict
boundaries. The two goals, which consisted of two
posts side by side or lashed together, might be 100 feet
or several miles apart. There were no side lines. Teams
varied from as few as 20 men to the 600 or so whom
Catlin observed and painted. The game itself, in the
Choctaw version, was accompanied by drums, by frenzied betting, and by female spectators who encouraged
their men by lashing their legs with whips. During the
game, rival medicine men rushed up and down the
field and employed mirrors to cast reflected light, believed to be a source of strength, upon their respective
teams (a tactic overlooked by modern coaches). What significance was attributed by the players to
their communal ritual? Stewart Culin, author of The
Games of the North American Indians (1907), ventured
an answer in an essay he contributed to Frederick W.
Hodge’s Handbook of American Indians (1907). “The
ceremonies,” wrote Culin, “appear to have been to cure
sickness, to cause fertilization and reproduction of
plants and animals, and . . . to produce rain. . . . The
ball was a sacred object, not to be touched with the
hand, and has been identified as symbolizing the earth,
the sun, or the moon.” About one thing we can be sure;
the men who played the game and the women who
watched it considered the pregame rituals to be an indispensable part of the entire ceremonial event.We can
also be sure that the actual contest was thought to be
just as infused with religious significance as the dances
and the scarification that preceded it. Indeed, the convenient distinction between the “pregame” ceremonies
and the “actual game” is a modern imposition. For the
Cherokees, Choctaws, and Creeks the ritual actions of
the medicine men were as much a part of the game as
the attempt to fling the ball across the goal line.
Compared to the rituals of pre-Columbian stickball,
those associated with modern sports are relatively simple. Football, for instance, has the raucous pregame pep
rally, the solemn locker room prayer session, and the
leggy antics of the cheerleaders; boxing has its portentous introductions and the ceremonial touch of the
gloves that supposedly links pugilism with the medieval tournament. The Olympic Games are an exception to the rule. They were revived in 1896 by a man
who was keenly aware of the importance of ritual.
In 1894, Pierre de Coubertin introduced his plan to
revive the Games at a conference held at the Sorbonne
in Paris. The ceremonies at the conference were not an
instance of ritual (because they were a unique event),
but they do demonstrate Coubertin’s typical strategy.
To persuade a skeptical audience that the ancient
games had a modern relevance, he overwhelmed them
with classical associations. The hall in which the conference took place was decorated with murals by the
19th-century neoclassical painter Puvis de Chavannes.
Music was provided by the composer Gabriel Fauré,
who orchestrated the ancient “Hymn to Apollo,” and by
Jeanne Remacle of the Opéra Française, who sang
Fauré’s composition. In his speech, which reminded the
delegates of the glories of Greek civilization, Coubertin
presented a vision of the Olympic Games as an instrument of international reconciliation. Coubertin’s proposals were enthusiastically accepted, and he was authorized to form an International Olympic Committee.
The Olympic Games offered Coubertin ample opportunity to indulge his sense of ritual. He was personally responsible for many of the most striking ritual elements of the modern games. The opening ceremonies
are a medley of these elements. Central to these ceremonies is the “parade of nations.” The athletes might
have been grouped by sports rather than by nations,
but neither Coubertin nor his successors dared to make
that symbolic gesture toward cosmopolitanism. Each
team is preceded by its national flag, proudly carried by
one of its athletic heroes. The Greek team is the first to
enter the stadium because the modern games are a revival of the ancient games celebrated at Olympia (and
because Athens hosted the first games of the modern
era). The team representing the host nation marches
last. Between the first and last teams come those of all
the other participating nations.
Once the thousands of athletes are assembled on
the grass within the 400-meter track, the Olympic flag,
which Coubertin designed, can be hoisted. This flag,
with its simple pattern of five linked rings, is among
the world’s most widely recognized symbols. The rings
interlock because they are meant as an image of human interdependence. Their five colors and their white
background were chosen by Coubertin to represent the
many colors of the world’s national flags.
The ritual of the Olympic torch was introduced in
1936 by Carl Diem, the German scholar quoted for his
belief that all sports originated in religious cult. Diem
was the mastermind of the organizing committee for
the 1936 Games, which were held in Berlin. The torch is
lit at Olympia, the site of the ancient games. (Although
television commentators persist in placing the ancient
games on Mount Olympus in northern Greece,
Olympia was actually in the south.) From Olympia, the
torch is passed from hand to hand until it reaches the
site of the Games. The last runner, who is always a male
or female athlete from the host nation, has the honor of
lighting the Olympic torch. (The drama of this and
other Olympic rituals is captured in Leni Riefenstahl’s
documentary film Olympia [1938].) An athlete from
the host nation takes the Olympic oath, symbolic doves
are released, the Olympic hymn is played, and the host
nation’s head of state solemnly declares the games to be
open. (The single sentence of this declaration is undoubtedly the shortest speech Adolf Hitler ever made.)
The spectators, having been suitably edified by a great
deal of idealistic symbolism, are entertained by song
and dance. By custom, many if not most of the songs
and the dances are representative of the culture of the
host nation. At Los Angeles in 1984, for instance, George Gershwin’s music and Native American dances
were much in evidence.
During the Games, the most obvious ritual is the
victory ceremony.Although the Olympic Charter claims
that the Games are contests among individuals and not
nations, nationalism pervades the ceremony. Some of
the symbolism is so obvious that we are hardly conscious of it. The victor’s medal is gold rather than silver
or bronze because gold has always symbolized the most
“noble” of metals. The victor’s spot on the podium is elevated above those of the other medal winners because
spatial positions are also metaphorical. Higher is
higher. Some of the symbolism is obvious and controversial. While no one advocates that the victors receive
a leaden medal or that they sit on the grass to receive it,
many critics have lamented the playing of national anthems and the raising of national flags. Criticism has
been ineffectual because the patriotic emotions unleashed by this ritual are greatly cherished. Although
weeping is not really an Olympic ritual, it is nonetheless
customary for even the hardiest athletes to have tears in
their eyes as the anthem plays and the flag rises.
The closing ceremony has become almost as elaborate as the opening ceremony.One ritual was introduced
by the athletes rather than by the Olympic officials. At
Melbourne in 1956, the athletes, who were grouped into
the traditional national teams, broke ranks, left their
positions, and joined in a spontaneous festival of international fellowship. They sang and danced, embraced
and hugged, and created a cherished event that actually
does more to symbolize de Coubertin’s dream of international reconciliation than any other Olympic ritual.
Private Rites
The premodern rituals of pre-Columbian stickball and
the modern rituals of the Olympic Games are both
communal. Sports have also had their share, and probably more than their share, of private rituals. These
vary as widely as people do. There are athletes who
cannot compete if they put on their right shoe before
their left. Others are disconcerted and uncoordinated if
they forget their bubble gum. Some kiss their spouse
before they depart for the stadium (left cheek, right
cheek, forehead, chin, lips—in that order and none
other). Some close their eyes, dispel thoughts of marital bliss, and concentrate on the contest.
John Wooden, legendary basketball coach at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), the man who
led the university to seven successive National Collegiate
Athletic Association (NCAA) championships, nicely exemplifies the pervasiveness and oddity of private ritual.
He performed an invariant pregame ritual. Before every
contest, he won the favor of the gods by turning to wink
at his wife (who always attended the game and always
sat directly behind him), by patting the knee of his assistant coach, by tugging at his socks, and by leaning
over to tap the floor. Only he knew the exact significance
of these symbolic behaviors, but we can assume that
Wooden believed them to be necessary adjuncts to his
instructions in dribbling, passing, and shooting.
The more we look, the more we see. Unlike many
premodern sports, modern sports are not rituals, but
they are surrounded by them, embedded in them, and
enriched by them.
—ALLEN GUTTMANN
Bibliography: Guttmann, Allen. (1978) From Ritual to
Record: The Nature of Modern Sports. New York: Columbia
University Press. MacAloon, John J. (1981) This Great
Symbol: Pierre de Coubertin and the Origins of the Modern
Olympic Games. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.