Remembering Bob Arnzen

Yesterday, while eating my dinner, I turned on ESPN and was instantly greeted with a whole bunch of coverage of "National Signing Day"--the day when high school seniors can sign letters of intent to play their sport(s) at a college or university. I felt instantly kind of disgusted at the spectacle ESPN was giving this day, providing it with a whole new level of status as a pseudoevent. Later, though, I thought a little better of it. At least this was (to some extent) ESPN hosts and analysts focusing on reporting events of some substantive significance, not the kinds of endless prattling about predictions, sensationalizing of comments made by sports figures, and arguing over such inane subjects as who or what is the best at something, how a game has affected an athlete's legacy, and so on. It's because of that kind of stuff that I can't typically stand to watch SportsCenter anymore. So, I supposed, at least this was a move in what might be a better direction--not great (you know, like showing more highlights would be), but at least a modicum better, I guess.

Still, on the whole, I found the whole event lacking in its value to me as someone who follows sports. I say this not wanting to offer some kind of moralistic jeremiad about the downfall of amateur sport or something like that. That's too shallow and idealistic of an argument. Rather, I offer this as an argument for rethinking roles and views of sports in U.S. society and for suggesting that the ultracompetitive impulse that so dominates contemporary sports might be de-emphasized to create a more joyful, inclusive, and meaningful experience out of playing and spectating sports, as opposed to the advancing of this impulse to more fully colonize sports, which is what appears to be occurring in such things as the narrating of big-time high school athletics as national rankings and contests for resources.

I say this amid other news from yesterday involving high school athletics that made some local news but did not make national news. Bob Arnzen, who coached boys basketball at my high school from 1949 to 1993, passed away yesterday at the age of 83. While I was in high school, Arnzen became the winningest boys basketball coach in the state of Ohio. That was the late 1980s, and in the time since then, he's been passed a few other coaches, so he now stands at fourth on the list with an overall record of 676-291. He was so significant to sports at my high school that upon his retirement in 1993, the school named its gymnasium after him. He was so well known in the area that news of his death has been covered in many outlets throughout the Lima, Ohio, area, with characterization of him as "legendary" prominent in the coverage.

Now, obviously, as my description just demonstrated, winning was part of Arnzen's legacy. In addition to ranking among the winningest coaches in Ohio boys basketball history, he won a state championship in 1983--an event that I remember fondly, as a fifth grader who that very year had gotten his first season ticket for boys basketball at the school. That team went undefeated. (I believe they went 28-0; well, actually, they lost their exhibition game against alumni, but they were undefeated in the games that counted.) After the season, the school had a pep rally to celebrate the team, and at the rally I got the autographs of the entire team--a piece of paper I kept for years and may still have somewhere in my aunt's attic with other stuff from my childhood. Arnzen also finished runner-up a couple of times and made the state semifinals a few more times, including my senior year of high school.

While I certainly remember some of those details of Arnzen's success in winning as a basketball coach, my memories of Arnzen tend to be dominated by other experiences from him. First, Coach Arnzen had a selection of ties in his office, from which he would loan out if a boy forgot to bring a tie, which was required for boys as part of the uniform at my high school. I remember once forgetting a tie as a freshman, and Arnzen graciously allowed me to borrow one for the day, as he would for so many other boys without judgment, concern, or favoritism. Second, as a senior in high school, once on a "jean day" when we could wear clothing outside the uniform, I wore a shirt my dad had bought me that said "Question Authority." While some faculty members suggested the inappropriateness of wearing this shirt, I received compliments from two faculty members on the shirt: Sister Mary Bernarda (who taught English to sophomores and seniors) and Coach Arnzen. I was struck at the time by the fact that teachers more aligned in terms of age with the Baby Boomers, who have become associated culturally with the kind of sentiment the shirt offered, objected to the shirt, while two of the older faculty members, both of whom came from the generation born in and around the 1920s, offered compliments.

These kinds of moments, much more than the winning basketball seasons, created my sense of who Arnzen is. That sense of the man is one of humanity. Generous, accepting, compassionate, open, humble even as a figure of authority--these are the characteristics that I associate with Arnzen based on my experiences with him. And these are the kinds of things that I would like to see emphasized in sports, rather than the often authoritarian, ultracompetitive, physically and psychologically violent frames through which contemporary sports tend to be filtered--the kinds of frames exactly used in the "meat market" kind of metaphor through which National Signing Day was covered on ESPN and in other sports news outlets. National Signing Day could be a day focused on the educational and professional opportunities men and women have available by signing to play college athletics, rather than the emphasis on which colleges have now garnered the greatest resources. However, the latter is what we tend to get. (For more on this kind of thing, though applied to a different event, I'd recommend Thomas Oates' essay "The Erotic Gaze in the NFL Draft" from March 2007 issue of Communication & Critical/Cultural Studies.)

I think that competition has a place in society, and sports may be an excellent place for that competition to occur. However, it seems that a humane society would ask that competition serve humanity, not the other way around. Much of what I see in the field of national sports emphasizes competition with humanity as an afterthought, though I think it would serve the world, the nation, and individual locales within the world and nation better if sports emphasized humanity, with competition as one facet of humanity that sports allows people to express. My sense always was that Arnzen knew and put into practice something along those lines. He certainly was competitive, but I didn't see that get in the way of being inclusive, being generous, and being gracious--in a phrase, "being humane." That's how I remember Coach Arnzen, and I'm happy to have the chance to remember him personally.