tain play, injuries,heckling from spectators, or taunts by coaches and players. The social learning theorymaintains that aggressive behavior is learned through modeling and reinforced by rewardsand punishments(171). Each of these theories could play a role in the increasing violencein sports. Athletes may be seeing sports as an outlet to vent there frustration and anger. Young athletes often take sports heroes as role models and imitate their behavior, whichmay lead to children imitating such aggressive behavior in their own sporting activities. Many continue to argue that sports have always been violent and that today thingsare no better or worse than they were years ago. However, according to Berger, evidencecontradicts this and sources show there are more serious injuries and violent acts on andoff the field in todays sports than there were in the past(9-10). Violence in sports is not anew concept, but it is more prevalent and harmful today than it was in the past(Yeager126). There has been an increase in the frequency and seriousness of acts of violence,which is most prevalent in team contact sports, such as ice hockey, football, soccer, rugby,and even basketball. This is likely due to the increased competitiveness in sports. Thestrive for competitiveness starts in youth sports and only escalates in college andprofessional sports(Berger 12). The greater the importance placed on winning, the moreviolent the play is likely to become. From experience of my own, I can vouch that thebigger the game the more emotion thats put into the game. With higher stakes playersare more physical and aggressive often causing problems when people on opposite teamscollide.Emotion is another element of sports that can easily turn into violence. Competitive sports are emotional events and when emotions get out of control violence isinevitable. Through personal experience I can say that emotion often gets the best ofplayers and can turn to aggr...
