When Did Sportsmanship Lose the Game to Spectacle?

It’s one thing to be lectured about the misdirection of the American sports culture by someone who’s never broken a sweat in competition or cheered for the home team. But when a lifelong jock and sports lover says something is desperately wrong, you listen.

“On the one hand,” says renowned 68-year-old tennis instructor Vic Braden, “we’re telling people that violent actions are wrong. Yet, in sport, we send mixed messages. The more violent you are, the more you can hurt a quarterback, the more valuable you become. So, sport gives people a license to maim, which is not available to anyone in any other part of our society.”

Look at hockey, Braden says. Look at basketball. Look at baseball. All too often, he says, violence or outrageousness are obscuring the true essence of sport.

In his youth, Braden quarterbacked his high school team. He played baseball. He won three Michigan prep tennis titles. He was a tennis pro in the 1950s but eventually turned to teaching. Along the way, he’s coached college basketball and operated tennis and ski schools.

This is someone who loves sport and understands its virtues. By reputation, he’s a cheerful and funny guy. His current command post is running the Vic Braden Tennis College in the idyllic hideaway of Coto de Caza, where you almost expect wood nymphs to be cavorting among the trees. No one who works in a place like that should have a care in the world.

Braden does. His concerns about the sports scene run the gamut. Culprits abound, from the preps to the pros.

* He cites some Texas schools where eighth- and ninth-graders are held back a year so they’ll be older and bigger to play high school football.

* He cites universities that claim to be interested in developing students’ potential, but then fire a coach on the basis of wins and losses.

* He cites the proliferating violence in virtually all sports. “What scares me,” he says, “is that you’re expected to retaliate. The coach says if you don’t, the other guy will bully you in games. Truly, an athlete has to learn how to fight. Before, you had to learn how to move left or right or shoot left or right; now, you’ve got to learn how to duck a punch.”

But before the rest of us get too smug about those awful athletes and coaches, Braden suggests looking in the mirror. “Where is society?” he says. “If we don’t like it, why are we buying a ticket to go to games?”

Answer your own question, I suggest. Where is society?

“I think we’re in the Stone Age,” he says. “We need to bring all these different groups together [parents, coaches, administrators, booster groups, players] and educate them. I don’t think any kid should be allowed to participate in any organized sport without their parents going through a course.”

He isn’t kidding. He’s talking about a course that would identify such things as what both the player and the parents hope to get from involvement in the sport.

The idea may sound radical, even nutty, but Braden, who is also a licensed psychologist, says it’s as simple as educating people about what sport means. Most may think of it as harmless diversion, but increasingly, Braden says, sport serves a darker purpose.

“The general society has a lot of hidden anger. That’s just the human being in us. Human beings have a lot of frustrations. Sport has become a catharsis for them. It enables them to get rid of their own aggression, or to at least hide them, by going to a sporting event.”

Braden wants to soften that. “There’s been a tremendous departure from the original Olympic goals. Now, it’s shifted from performance for performance sake to performance for potential income.”

He wants society to appreciate competition and athletic skill--and, yes, winning--but not at the expense of all else. “Sport is about winning,” he says, “but we need to say that the bigger thing is your effort to win.”

Braden’s latest project is a sign-of-the-times video, “Coaches at Risk.” Not long ago, a coach’s instructional video would be about installing a new offense or how to teach fundamentals. Braden’s video instructs coaches on controlling their anger on the job and at home, on dealing with their substance abuse problems, and with allegations of harassment of their players. On May 2, the Orange County Psychological Assn. will sponsor a seminar on those issues from 1 to 5 p.m. at Braden’s tennis school.

We as a society have made sports big. In so doing, we’ve created big problems. Braden, ever the hopeful one, pictures a day when, somehow, we regain perspective. Someday, he thinks, we’ll return to a time when coaches, players and fans celebrate sport and not feel cheated if a fight doesn’t break out during a game.

But, he adds glumly, “that’ll be long after I’m gone.”

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Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by calling (714) 966-7821 or by writing to him at the Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, or by e-mail to dana.parsons@latimes.com