The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

Summary

Why do sports matter so deeply to so many people? This episode explores the emotional, social, and cultural reasons behind our passion for competition, teamwork, and victory — and what our love of sports reveals about human nature.

Transcript

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You didn't put booze in there. Perhaps you should give it to my daughter. Melt that chilly disposition of hers. She won't let me see my grandson. I'm cut off from him because I don't like her treating him like a train poodle. I swear, that boy doesn't piss without her permission the way she frets and fusses over that boy. Funny. She'd let him run, let him breathe, let him live. She won't even let the poor kid ride a bicycle.

And that's from the movie show a lot. What is so important about riding a bicycle and riding a bicycle on your own, without your mother sitting in tandem with you? What is so important about sports? What is so important about whether it's swimming or whether it's being on a baseball team or a soccer team or enjoying dance? Why do we value sports so much? With me today, it is my pleasure to have Dr. Judy Van Rault. She's a psychology professor at Springfield College in Massachusetts. She's worked with elite and professional athletes and youth sports athletes—that's kids in the United States and around the world. She's written four books and presented at conferences in 11 countries. She is a certified consultant and is listed on the United States Olympic Committee sports psychology registry. Welcome, Judy. Thank you. Why are sports so important in our lives?

Well, it's an interesting question. I think there are a lot of reasons why people really enjoy sports, and the first one we know from research with kids is sports are just fun, but sports are also challenging. So when we participate in sports, we learn, we grow, we gain skill. Sports are interesting and exciting, so we have sports heroes that are our superstars. So there are lots of reasons, right?

You know, I think back when I'm thinking of sports, I think of, well, my husband and I enjoy dance, but you think back to your childhood and you remember being on a team, and I can remember being the low man on a team, but you might have been on one of the swim teams or a tennis team or a basketball team, and you recall such strong emotions, really strong emotions—the day your team finally won and you helped them do it, or the day your team finally lost and you helped them lose. Can you explain, like, what is it about sports that makes it so important in our life? It gives us the highs and the lows, and we're even fascinated as spectators.

It's an interesting question to consider why we're so involved, and I think there's a whole lot of reasons. You describe being involved in the activity and really remembering it, because we tend to remember and love the things we do. So when you think of a classroom and a teacher sitting with a chalkboard—which doesn't really exist anymore, of course, it's digital technology—but watching someone else do things, it was a lot less interesting than doing it yourself. So you get involved in sport, you get better, even if you're, I guess I would say, the lowest jumper on the skating rink or the slowest runner on the field. And it's empowering to improve and do things with friends and continuously learn. So all of that is part of what makes it great. And as fans, we connect to our teams. But there's a downside, too. I think you can recall some sports teams where, for some people, sports builds character, but for other people, there's those folks where sports builds character disorders.

Oh, that's interesting. Tell me about that.

Well, I guess as a sports psychology consultant, I'm called in to work with individual athletes on problems they might have. Could be coming back from an injury, could be getting stuck improving where they had been improving before. But I also work with coaches and with groups where they're trying to perform better. And, you know, again, for some people, sport brings out their best. And for other people, not so much.

So for some people, it brings out that wonderful ability to value another person, to communicate better, to really do the teamwork. You know, I was watching an episode a while ago of Dancing with the Stars, and the pros were having some difficulty with one another organizing one routine. And a football guy came in and said, "You know, I'm familiar with team building. I know how to do it. I can do it." And he helped them through that moment. So for him, it was character building. But for other people, it can, as you said, be character disorder building, where they do. Have an example of one of somebody who just maybe, someone that we'd all know about, who just has a character disorder, if you're at liberty to say it?

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Do you have an example of one of somebody who just maybe, someone that we'd all know about, who just has a character disorder, if you're at liberty to say it?

Oh, I am so not at liberty to say. Okay, when I work with teams and athletes, the work that we do is confidential, and that's important, because sometimes the things that make people great athletes, like leadership skills and hard work and willing to go above and beyond what normally the human body can do, are great for sport performance, and other times those skills might lead to overly aggressive play and physical injury and doing things that the rest of society might not think are acceptable. Figuring out exactly where that line is can be a tricky thing, and a good sports psychologist can work with athletes in a private setting to reach their goals and to perform better, and the athlete can know that what they have to say, what they're trying, thinking, and feeling is safe.

So as a sports psychologist, you do lots of different work with lots of different people. What would be one of your more interesting—I know you can't give names—but experiences as a sports psychologist, maybe working with Olympic teams, or maybe it would be a youth team.

You're right. I'm not naming names, okay, I can't tell you that. One of the most typical things that happens is we find that athletes who get stuck, I guess that's what I would say, have a problem or are challenged, usually have that problem happen because they're trying to solve one problem and another problem gets created. So, for example, your team-building football player, maybe one of the ways that a college football team builds group cohesion is to all go out together after the game, and the guys have fun together, and sometimes that leads to drinking and other kinds of behavior. So they're just all trying to solve one problem, which is, after all that emotional energy and hard work and sometimes even after losing a game, how do they still stay connected? And the solution might be to go spend time together, but if that involves excessive drinking and maybe some iffy choices, then solving one problem causes lack of cohesion, may create another problem.

Right, right, and with me today. This is Dr. Judy Van Rault. She's a sports psychologist, and she's a certified consultant and is listed on the United States Olympic Committee sports psychology registry. If people want to get in touch with you, do you have a website or books that you can recommend?

Sure. They can contact me through our website. It is our company, Virtual Brands, and the website is www.virtualbrands.video

, all one word.com.

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