Almost all Americans are involved with sports in some way. They may play baseball or volleyball or go swimming or skiing. They may watch football or basketball on the high school, college, or professional level. In reality, sports have reached a point where they play too large a role in daily life.
The overemphasis (过度强调) on sports can be seen most obviously in the vast media coverage of athlete events. It seems as if every race, meet, or match is shown on one television channel or another. In addition, sports news make up about 30 percent of local news. Radio offers a complete list of games and a wide variety of sports shows. Furthermore, many daily papers such as USA Today are devoting more and more space to sports coverage, often in an attempt to attract more readers. The paper with the biggest sports section is the one people will buy.
The way we raise and educate our children also illustrates our sports craziness. As early as six or seven, kids are placed in little leagues, often to play under screaming coaches and pressuring parents. Later, in high school, students who are selected by the school and the community are not those who are the best academically but those who are the best athletically. And college sometimes seems to be more about sports than about learning. The United States may be the only country in the world where people often think of their colleges as teams first and schools second. The names Penn State, Notre Dame and Southern Cal mean "sports" to the public.
Our sports craziness is especially evident in the prestige (声望) given to athletes in the United States. For one thing, we reward them with enormous salaries. In 1990, for example, baseball players averaged 350,000 a year; the average annual salary in the United States is 18,000. Besides their huge salaries, athletes receive the admiration, and sometimes the votes of the public.
