One of the greatest struggles I faced as a prepubescent youth was convincing my friends that chess mattered. Or rather, the chess could be considered as much of a sport as the more “mainstream” physical activities, such as soccer and basketball. Chess has thousands of professional players, competitions with fantastic monetary compensation and even its own Olympiad. How then, is one to say that chess is not a sport, despite its lack of physicality (assuming the players are reasonably cordial)?
To be fair, I was a pretty round kid in middle school. I probably would have argued the merits of chess ad nauseam to make up for my inability to do ten pushups. However, the point still remains: to what activities can we confer the title “sport”? Certainly physical activity can’t be the only criterion – I’d never look at my five-year-old cousin playing tag and proclaim she’s competing in a sport. However, claiming that chess’ status as a sport is validated because there’s an Olympiad dedicated to it is just as absurd an idea. My apologies to the Princeton mathematics department and the many mathletes on campus, but I’m not quite ready to call competitive math a sport based on the existence of a math Olympiad.
But I digress. Perhaps the notion that a “sport” must be physical reflects a standard to which we hold young men and women, a standard that may indeed be anachronistic. It has become more commonplace for children and teenagers to spend their afternoons in front of a screen rather than out on a field; in the same vein, sedentary activities are much more a staple of the typical person’s childhood. Hence, the people who are inclined to spend hours and hours on end perfecting their skills at Call of Duty or in their favorite chess opening are not outcasts or oddballs but rather receive respect and recognitionfrom many for their passions.
At heart, maybe that’s what drives us to call anything a sport: respect for passion and competitive fire. On the topic of video games, I can’t fathom how much skill and practice it takes to become good enough at a video game to compete at an international level. In turn, many of my friends tell me that they could never sit down long enough to study volume after volume of chess literature, or spend three to four hours staring a chess board during a tournament. They may not yet revere Bobby Fisher like Michael Jordan (as they clearly should), but I think they understand that it takes no less of a commitment to be outstanding in my field as it does to be outstanding in theirs.
When I applied to Princeton, one of my essays described how my journey to become a great chess player lets me appreciate the struggle required to become good at any kind of sport. It’s one thing to watch Kobe Bryant make a beautiful shot or Tom Brady make a pinpoint pass; it’s another thing to appreciate the work behind the scenes, the late night practices and the agonizing frustration that is a constant companion on the road to success. And of course, the disgust and bitterness of each loss, the mental rewinds of every mistake you made in a game that haunts you for days after.
All those who commit themselves to a sport have something in common: an inner drive, a competitive spirit that roars like a fire within. In any endeavor, there’s no greater feeling than crushing your opponents, that invigorating rush that causes all the pain felt along the way to fade into the background.
So to all those who love their sport, but wonder whether what they do counts as such, I say this to you: play on. If anything defines a sport, it’s the passion and competitive fire of those that play.
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