Playing sport’s love-hate game
Why do we love some athletes and loathe others asks
There is no rhyme or reason to it – love some athletes, hate others. Don’t know why.
Pete Sampras
The superbout between Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao last weekend was billed, at least in some quarters, as Good against Evil.
Mayweather, a self-proclaimed narcissist with a penchant for taking selfies with bundles of cash and who has served time for domestic battery, was on the Evil side. Pacquiao, a self-evidently decent man who has given up his free time to work in congress in his native Philippines and who donates large chunks of his personal fortune to humanitarian causes, was on the Good side.
This moral dichotomy was reflected in the support the two men received, both in the auditorium and on social media. The Filipino was cheered, even as he lost a one-sided bout. People clearly admired his principles and humility. Mayweather, in his home city of Las Vegas, was booed.
To put it simply, the response to this rivalry was grounded in visible differences in the moral character of the two men, a distinction that fans could clearly articulate and had no difficulty in justifying. As one journalist put it in the moments leading up to the opening bell: ‘‘This is one of those times when you just know who to support.’’
It was this comment that got me thinking about other sporting rivalries. Last year, I was involved in a Q&A when the subject of the Roger Federer-Rafael Nadal rivalry cropped up. I am guessing that few observers will detect an obvious moral divide between these two men. Insiders describe both as decent, courteous and upstanding. Both seem to be positive role models.
And yet for many (although not all) in the audience, the feelings one way or the other were surprisingly strong. One Federer fan said that he cannot bring himself to watch the whole match when Nadal races into the lead, and that when the Spaniard defeated Federer in the 2008 Wimbledon final it ‘‘ruined his year’’.
A Nadal fan offered a different perspective, saying that the victories over Federer were ‘‘lifeaffirming’’. ‘‘It is always lovely to see the Swiss getting beaten.’’
One can understand differences in the aesthetic response to the players, but these attitudes seemed to go deeper. One chap who disliked Nadal talked about his irritation with his tics and superstitions, and with his ‘‘false modesty’’. The man who disliked Federer pointed to press conferences at which he has been ungenerous to opponents, and to the white dinner jacket he wore to the Wimbledon final. ‘‘Hints at a little bit of self-obsession, don’t you think?’’ he said.
What is remarkable here is that few casual tennis fans have met either man in the flesh. At a rational level, they know that both are decent guys and these tiny, ambiguous differences in public behaviour do not portend very much. And yet there is a strong, visceral dislike for one and a devotion to the other. Indeed, the emotions seemed to be quite as strong as I detected at the Mayweather-Pacquiao bout, perhaps even stronger.
On the plane home from Las Vegas, I began to reflect on my loves and hates and noted the same pattern. Growing up, I adored the cricketers Derek Randall and Chris Tavare, but I struggle today to justify the reasons. I think that I admired Tavare for his tenacity and Randall for his spirit. But, looking back, while these attributes may indeed be admirable, they do not quite explain why I cried for hours when they were dropped from the England team.
And let me freely confess to the equally irrational nature of my hatred. I could never abide Pete Sampras, for example, to the extent that I watched none of his Wimbledon finals all the way through. I would read beautiful odes to this most elegant of athletes, and they would leave me cold. I would listen to postmatch interviews, and find my skin crawling. The only marginally coherent reasons I can find for this dislike are that I didn’t like the way he opened his mouth and lolled his tongue between points, and the lack of spark in his eyes.
When I interviewed Sampras last year, I felt a moral compulsion to confess to these feelings and to tell him that I had rooted for every opponent he had ever played against. It was characteristic of his generosity of spirit that he found this hugely amusing. ‘‘There is no rhyme or reason to it,’’ he said. ‘‘I am the same: love some athletes, hate others. Don’t know why.’’
We are all aware of how football fans grow up supporting a team, become part of a community and develop irrational devotion. This has echoes in anthropological concepts such as patriotism and tribalism. But what we are talking about here is quite different. When it comes to whether we like Federer or Nadal, there is no socialising process. We are not part of a community. We often come to these views in isolation. And yet the feelings are deep: perhaps deeper than we care to admit.
Think of your own irrational objections to some, and affection for others. Isn’t this the basic (but often unspoken) stuff of human psychology. Aren’t friendships and enmities a bit like this, too? A tiny, ambiguous sleight from a colleague can create emotions that ruin any prospect of a future accord; likewise, a warm gesture can lead one towards deep friendship with a colleague who, with a trivially different starting point, might have become one’s worst enemy.
I suspect many of our feelings about politicians have similar contours. While we deliberate on the basis of policies and track records, we also react in less rational ways to particular mannerisms or perceptions. As one caller to a radio station put it yesterday: ‘‘I can’t stand David Cameron. Have you seen the way he smiles?’’
David Hume, the Scottish philosopher, wrote that reason is ‘‘the slave of the passions’’. We are surprisingly visceral creatures, who sometimes come to strong judgments on the basis of nothing in particular. Sport reveals this, perhaps more than anything else.
Are you with Navratilova or Evert, Coe or Ovett, Sampras or Agassi? I am guessing you have strong feelings on the matter, either way, but very few compelling reasons.