Even though sports are unique, they are what connects people all around the world. What we all have in common is finding entertainment in sports, watching our favorite teams, and cheering for the people we know or like. Coming from Europe, North America, or Africa, everyone has watched some type of game or meeting in their life, whether it’s football or volleyball, whether it was a high school, college, or professional game. It brings people many emotions that they do not experience daily, excitement about watching someone play their favorite sport, or getting inspired by athletes. But even though sports bring humans together, and allow them to experience various feelings, they differ from country to country, and continent to continent.
Living in different countries, experiencing contrasting cultures, and observing people all around the world brings many conclusions or thoughts about diverse aspects of life, one of them being sports. When discovering American culture, there is a huge tendency for sports to be a vast part of entertainment, and that contributes to it being an important part of the culture. Almost every teenager plays at least one sport in high school, and many of them do not only one but two or three sports during the year. Often, there are also a lot of people who are called multi-athletes, doing more than one sport at a time. While sport is a large part of American culture, it also brings a sense of community to high school and college. It connects teammates, and viewers, forming a group, and contributing to building relationships between people. Sports are also associated with school, practices take place in the school’s gym or sports facility around the building, or campus, which again brings people together and allows them to bond. After being a high school athlete, some people get offered scholarships to go to college and continue their sports career while being an athlete in a given division and performing for their college. While the sports in college are usually a full-year commitment, which means that people train for one sport for the whole year, high school sports are usually seasonal and take place during the fall, winter, or spring. With that being said, the way sports work in the United States is unlike anything that sports are in Europe.
There are several different countries in Europe, and the sports experience may vary from one to another, depending on the location, but nothing changes the fact that sports in Poland are way distinct from what it looks like in America. Beginning with that the sports are not a part of the school spirit, nor their goal is winning for the school. It still brings a sense of community and helps to bond with people of the same interests, but on a much smaller scale than in the United States. Sports take place outside of school, usually on the city’s properties such as city stadiums, gyms, or tracks. More skilled, and dedicated athletes usually pick one sport that they do all year round. They train in the off-season to prepare for the upcoming season, and they dedicate, and devote themselves to the sport, which usually means choosing between training, and friends, or time for themselves. While saying that, it is also beneficial to keep in mind that school in European countries is very intense, people take fourteen classes each year, and that alone is hard to keep up with, and adding on to that responsibility of good performance in sports is a huge weight. People train for success, and the focus is to win, have fun, and most importantly go professional. College scholarships for sports are not a thing since education is free in Poland, and colleges usually do not have athletes training, and representing the university. It is really hard to balance school, and education with sports, so you do not see people training, and practicing sports a lot. There is a lot of pressure on the athletes, and only the most dedicated ones make it to the professional level.
Sport was, and still is a big part of the cultures across the world. It keeps people entertained, and excited, and inspires some to go above and beyond their limits. No matter where someone is, at what point in their life they are, or who they are it is a huge part of bonding, spending time together, with loved ones, or unknown people, and building relationships, even though sports can vary from one to another, and from country to country, it still helps to bring people together, which I think is the best part about sport.
