[quote]flipcollar wrote:
[quote]spook1 wrote:
[quote]zecarlo wrote:
[quote]spook1 wrote:
People can be bodybuilders even if they don’t compete; there would be many people on this forum in this category.
[/quote]
If I play a game of basketball on the weekend with some friends I wouldn’t go around calling myself a basketball player. When someone claims to be something like that the response is, “what team do you play for?” If someone claims to be a bodybuilder then the response might be, “what comps have you entered and/or won?” In other words, the claim implies that one is a competitive participant at the highest levels. If you have to end up qualifying the claim with, “oh, I’m not a pro basketball player I just play with some buddies in my driveway,” or, “I’m not a competitive bodybuilder, I just try to look like one without having to do the extreme cutting or having to pose in front of a crowd,” then you probably should have qualified it from the start. You can call yourself whatever you want but let’s be honest: if someone says they are a bodybuilder we assume they actually compete. [/quote]
So if you played golf you would not say your a golfer? If you fished you would not say your a fisherman?
I mean this being an active part of your life not something you do once a year.[/quote]
Salesmen who come into my office ask me, on a very regular basis “are you a golfer?” They’re obviously not asking me if I play on the PGA tour, because they’re visiting me at my job.[/quote]
Agreed. Does someone really need to be a “competitive participant at the highest levels” to do a sport? This makes no sense to me. “I am a skier” does not imply, to me at least, that that person races on the World Cup circuit. It instead implies to me that the person does it with enough passion and regularity that it comprises a significant element of their life. Same with “I am a runner, golfer, swimmer, rower, lifter etc…”.
Also, what about all the years spent training and competing at lower levels before anyone could dream of competing at an elite or professional level. Is one not “doing” the sport during those 10 000 hours or so that lead up to a high level performance? What about after they have passed their competitive prime but choose to stay active in their sport in a more casual, recreational capacity? Are they doing their sport?
Like I said, this is way too narrow a definition for me. Also it is not really specific to CF, more responding to the “what is a sport/who is an athlete?” discussion.