way from gangs which is why you see so many athletic and boxing clubs being run out of the inner city. It is allowing the youth to take that hostility out on a willing participant who is ready and consenting rather than against an innocent bystander. Some individuals have gone as far as saying that sport is creating a deviant subculture where these athletes are becoming the opposite of what was intended for them. "The emphasis in formalized sport on victory may, in fact, promote deviant behavior and poor sportsmanship" (Snyder 101). I would have to totally disagree with the above quote because being an athlete myself, I can never recall a time when I could have related my deviant behavior to my sporting past. Sports does not promote poor sportsmanship, it creates a drive to succeed within yourself and to try to do the best at whatever you do whether it be in sports, school or at a job. The violence that is occurring today is not occurring more than it was ten or twenty years ago like some people might suggest, it is only being shown and talked about more by the mass media. If there is one group to blame for the increase in violence I feel that it would be the media, not the athletes themselves. If you turn on the television to watch a sportscast, it will always glorify an act of violence like a "hit of the night" or repeats of some type of fight whether it be in hockey, boxing or a bench-clearing brawl in baseball. I can recall on numerous occasions where the media has hyped up a hockey game involving two "tough guys" and creating a hysteria in sporting world wanting to see the outcome of the fight. Is this wrong for the media to be encouraging and glorifying the violence in sport? I don't think so because the fans want to see it and like it or not, it is here to stay. Look at sports like boxing for example, who relies on the media to increase the sports fans interest in an upcoming match. When you can only fit approximately "17,000 peo...
