Sports in Spain
This is an excerpt from the paper...
The games a society plays are a modest but significant part of its cultural essense, if we are to accept that phrase as having any meaning at all. The Duke of Wellington is supposed to have said that the Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton, and the Olympic athlete was one of the defining figures of classical Greek civilization. Baseball has long been held out as the quintessentially American game; if so, the successive rises of football and basketball to equal prominence may say something about a newer America, while the historical failure of soccer, the "world game," to catch on in the United States, at least at a professional level, perhaps says something about the distinctiveness of American society. So it is with other nations and their sports as well. Our concern in the following discussion is with Spain, and with the history of sports in that country and that culture. Does the history and development of sports in Spain, from the most casual children's street play to the most professional level, say anything useful about Spanish society, and its relationship to other societies? The brief references made above to other societies and their sports hints that it may. Certainly the role of Spain as the source and center of that most extraordinary of sports, the bullfight, suggests the distinctiveness of Spanish culture, and perhaps reveals something deep in the Spanish soul. This essay will first briefly touch on the historical issues of Spani
. . .
f Spain as a typical European country, a founder and continuing presence in international soccer, and a country that made the most of its "home court" advantage in the 1992 Olympics. But, of course, this picture is incomplete, for we have not yet spoken of toreo, the bullfight.
Is bullfighting a sport? It certainly has many of the trappings of professional sports: large stadiums are built to accomodate the crowds of spectators, and the leading practitioners become national celebrities (and, indeed, celebrities throughout the Spanish-speaking world). But if it is a sport, it is one like no other, for every corrida is a struggle to the death. Many spectator sports are dangerous to the participants; football players and even baseball players have died of game-related injuries. But in no other sport does the "player" open himself so much to the risk of death or maiming from one misstep.
Bullfighting arouses intense emotions among outside observers.
To a large number of people it is one of the glories of Spain, a ritual of a proud, brave, and colorful people
whose place in the sun has a harsh beauty unmatched
anywhere else in the world. (Haining, 1970, p. 11)
To Ernest Hemingway, the most famous American aficion
. . .
Some common words found in the essay are:
Minoan Crete, Spain Szulc, Eton Olympic, Appropriately Barcelona, World Series, Silver Age, Rules Leibold, Sweden Switzerland, Christian Spain, Golden Age, haining 1970, spanish sports, leibold 1970, szulc 1972, sports spain, world game, haining 1970 11, 1970 11, golden age, soccer world game, sport art, concerned spain, haining 1970 5, szulc 1972 240,
Approximate Word count = 2670
Approximate Pages = 11 (250 words per page)
More Essays on Sports in Spain
|
Customer Service
to Over
32,000 Professionally Written Papers!!!
