| THE NEW SPORT Bear with me for a few seconds and try, if you will, to let me coheres you into the body, mind, and soul of a fictional character and allow you to gain an empathetic sense of familiarity to this person. I will first ask you to pull from your incredible index of memories a time when you were asked to muster up your strength, and skills and to force yourself ithrough tough situation where you were forced to perform under pressure and when your performance could have brought down a team and cause much distress or put someone at risk. Baseball players were the bases loaded, score tied, and your turn to bat in the fourth inning? Lifeguards did you ever work at a pool alone and a patron put their life at risk? Football, Basketball, Soccer players has the ball ever come your way and you knew it could mean the game? Perhaps you were in a musical, choir, play, or even a concert and there was the chance if you screwed up that everyone would notice and maybe laugh? Whatever it is, revisit those feelings for a while and focus on the knot you had in your stomach, the clammy feeling in your hands, the sweat tingling under your arms, or beading on your forehead and then the adrenaline rush and cold hands that preceded. Now attempt if you will, to carry over those feelings of nervousness, intensity, and adrenaline rushing through your veins and imagine yourself on a team, a team that consists of 5 top military men on a mission with each person carrying an equally important role. Some of your teammates may have seen more action and have come to judge you as a novice or perhaps they respect your ability to call strategies and communicate or teach and look to you for leadership. Whatever the case, the heart starts that thumping and your sanity is tampered with because you know that it is impossible for your team to be at full force if you don�t exercise good judgment, great communication skills, and have trained hard so that you are in synch with the team. Against great opponents, you know in your mind that if you are eliminated or fail as a person that your team may quickly become outnumbered or will become disorganized and will eventually fall into the oppositions control. The pressure is stacked, people are watching, and what you do will effect the team. Do you remember the ball coming at you, the curtains going up, or the time your CPR and quick reactions were needed? A cry of Go! Go! Go! Comes from your team, the ball is in play and guns are firing, grenades are in the air and a large quantity of c4 was planted near a demolition target. I have been there, my team has won a few times. The game is called Counter-Strike and was around before the Sept. 11 incident so there is no need to throw stones. Why the comparison to how you feel in a ball game or when you are called upon to perform in an incident? Well quite simply because like there are times when this game is just for fun, there are times when it becomes much, much more. For instance, maybe you go to the park with your family or friends and throw the ball around, play some cool licks on the guitar with a garage band, or see how fast you can play scales on the violin, and sing in the shower. Then there are times when you put it all on the line to shoot that ball for a goal, a strike, or touchdown to push your team higher in the league or play to a full audience to receive a scholarship, raise money, or just inspire yourself and gain school pride. �So what am I getting at?� you might ask. Well, it may sound funny to some and in fact I kind of laughed when I thought of it myself but, what I am saying or asking rather, is for you the reader to evolve any ideas of gaming from a negative factor in young and older people to think of online gaming in the same light you would consider the positive and practical purposes of any other sport, playing of musical instruments, and even to the idea that it can prepare you for things that happen in the real world. Yes I believe it should be closely classified with tennis, martial arts, and about anything else you can name where you have to utilize muscle coordination, timing, quick thinking, fast reflexes, communication, and full control of motor skills as well as teamwork and social skills. I realize that you don�t get the exercise necessary that some sports give you but that that is what really has me inspired even more is that physically challenged people, including non-athletic types by choice (i.e. overweight, hard-core computer people) can now compete with the best of football players, basketball players, etc, and still have a chance at winning. |