When was the fun in playing games taken out of sports?

There was a time when children had fun playing games with friends. Oh by the way, kids are goats not children. And now it's, I'm better than you and I can out do you and so on. Parents risk the lives of their children for the money and not the fun of playing sports. A parent at a little girls basketball game shouting for another little girl to miss a shot or clapping when one fails in a game causes damage to a child's mind. What happened to sports and caused the game to be taken out of it?When was the fun in playing games taken out of sports?
I starred your question, because I think you are on to something here. I think the shift you describe in how people experience and do sports, is to be found throughout society - not just in sports.



When a society - and most western societies do - has competition at the heart of its being, it will influence every aspect of life. For instance, around I would say 1850 the market place started to change. Quality was no longer the main issue when manufacturing goods or services, but it became about competing and winning. The same happened - over time - to politics. Nowadays, when a President is elected, he speaks of 'winning' the elections, not about being presented with the difficult task of leading the nation.



You see the same change in sports. When it is all about competition, having fun or enjoying a good game has become less important over time. The more people become competitive about things, the more intense the competition will get.



I think today's parents were the first generation who were brought up in the spirit of this urge to compete, this need to be better in comparison to someone else. The ones who didn't make it, were frustrated of course, and their frustration and negativity is easy to spot when they 'encourage' their own kids in the way you described it.



This is what I think has happened to sports, anyway.When was the fun in playing games taken out of sports?
I used to play sports. I love being in the water more than I love anything else. I just feel... whole and at home. I've always loved swimming.



I quit swimming because it stopped being about me being able to swim faster than somebody for fun to being about HAVING to win at all cost. It became about pushing myself harder and harder till there wasn't anybody that was able to push ahead of me. And it really started sucking. Because before long, I didn't wanna get in the pool. Before long, I didn't wanna swim to win. I just wanted to swim at my own pace and lose.



So I quit the team and it was like Heaven. And I do miss the swimming almost everyday. I think I'll always miss the joy of going through the water as fast as I possibly can. But I missed not being able to swim for joy a whole hell of a lot more.



And that's an insiders view on the problem a little. They make it so that sport you're so passionate about isn't about fun anymore. It's about winning and doing it better than anybody else. They make it so once you're good, it's time to be better. Because it's never enough to just win. You have to completely humiliate the other team.