What happened?

I remember when I was young playing sports how fun it was and how no matter what the outcome was life still went on. We could get beat 13-1 in baseball and still be able to laugh and have fun, yeah it sucked getting beat but it wasn't the end of the world and we still went over and gave the other team high fives or shake hands. Last night I noticed something that for the past few weeks or times I've went to either Tyson's ball games or to watch the games Taylor is cheering at that attitudes are becoming a big issue and that sportsmanship is lacking in some of the participants. Now I've played sports long enough to know its a competition and that the other team is the "enemy" for 24 to 32 minutes of action but when its all said and done its still just a game that is meant to be fun.

I know that in the past when playing that there was always one, either on my team or the other team, who had a chip on their shoulder, thought that the whole game revolved around them, or that they were the best thing since the other side of the pillow. There are always those who I call a deep black hole, which by that I mean when they get the ball in basketball the other 4 teammates might as well head back down to the other end of the floor because they aren't going to see it again until the next possession. They are the kind that no matter if they are guarded by 1,2 or more of the other team they take it upon themselves to make the shot wherever and whenever they can. Case in point, last night at one of the games a player scored like 28 of the teams 32 points or something to that effect. You might say they were on fire, yes they hit alot of shots but there was times where a break was happening and it was a 3 on 1 break and the defender was on them and they still shot the ball. Its called a team. You win as a team and you lose as a team.

The sportsmanship side real quick, at Tyson's game they got beat by 1, they had the lead and was trying to hold the ball and lost it and they went down and scored with like 10 seconds left and we had a chance but couldn't hit so tough loss. We were sitting on the top row of bleachers which was actually the 4th row and one of the kids on Tyson's team said he wasn't shaking hands with them and he didn't and I saw that the coach noticed and hopefully the coach let him know about it. Do they see this from pro athletes? Is our sports world so caught up in individual play now instead of team play? I do remember once as a young baseball player that we got beat and I was mad for whatever reason and while shaking the other teams hand I thought it was a good idea to punch one of the kids in the stomach, just a random kid who was actually older than me and probably could have beat me up but didn't. Dad caught wind of it and let me have it on the way home and I can say that I have never done anything like that again. I hope that both of my kids when ever they are competing in sports or whatever always show good sportsmanship and lead by example.