When I was in high school I competed for my high school track and field team. To me, as well as to many of my teammates, winning events and races was of top priority. All varsity runners on the team did everything they could to improve their chances of winning everyday by training hard during practices, eating healthy, and watching videos of professionals. We would prepare weeks in advance for meets against other schools with nothing on our minds other than winning our events for the team. Often times members of our team would suffer academically because of how heavily we valued our sport over everything else.
Before one of the last meets of the season our coach pulled me and a couple of other varsity runners from our team aside and told us this was the meet to show everyone what we've got. He knew there wasn't enough time left in the season to get faster or stronger than we currently were and wanted us to qualify for Illinois state competitions by running our events in qualifying times. Among us was my good friend Mason who was the shining star of our team. Everyone on the team knew how hard Mason trained. It was no surprise that no one could ever beat him in his respective events. We all believed Mason would use this specific track meet to qualify for state competitions and then regional competitions afterwards.
One of Mason's most signature events was the 200 meter dash. None of us on the team had ever seen him lose in the 200 meter dash event all season so when he stepped up to the starting blocks to race against the best from the other schools we expected him to win. Everyone at the meet watched silently as the participating runners prepared themselves and after a brief delay the referee fired a gun to signal the start of the race. As expected, Mason was towards the front of the pack running as fast as we had ever seen. When the runners reached the final 100 meters of the race, Mason was shoulder to shoulder with another runner in a blue uniform. For a sprint event they had created an incredible distance between them and the prospective 3rd place runner.
With only 50 meters left everyone on our team was cheering for Mason at the top of our lungs, but neither him nor the boy in blue could get an inch ahead of each other. All of a sudden the runner in the blue uniform that was running neck to neck against Mason began to wobble and fell to the ground. In track and field because the 200 meter dash event is so short and all the runners are so fast if you stop for even a brief moment against equal runners you are for sure to lose. The boy who had fell knew this and instantly put his head in his hands and began to cry. While it's unlikely for runners to slip up in a short race it's also not incredibly uncommon.
Especially since it was such an important race everyone watching felt for the boy. However, the most incredible thing happened moments after the boy had fell. Mason, who was guaranteed first place after his only rival had fallen, stopped running, turned around, and began to walk towards his competitor. As he walked towards the runner in blue all of the other runners in the event passed him towards the finish line without batting an eye. None of us will ever forget the sight of Mason holding out his hand and helping his "enemy" up to his feet with a smile on his face regardless of him knowing he had given up the chance of winning the race.
Mason could have acted opportunistically by taking advantage of the fact that his only true competitor in the race had fallen and thus he was guaranteed first place and the fastest time at the meet for the event. However, Mason didn't want to win that way. He valued fairness more than he valued winning and later told me he would have felt like the biggest loser if he had won that race because of someone else's misfortune. Mason taught me in that moment that the "reward" received by taking advantage of circumstances may be of less value than the personal morals we choose to live by.
This story parallels a story from the Olympics about women runners who were involved in a similar incident. Sportsmanship in the heat of the moment is a wonderful thing.
ReplyDeleteI wonder, however, whether finishing the race instead of helping the fallen runner should be interpreted as opportunism, which typically implies harm to somebody else. Would there have been a harm done if Mason finished the race first and only then walked back to the fallen runner? Unlike in the Olympics event that I linked to, this was a relatively short race, so we're talking a matter of seconds aren't we? In any event it would be good to work through this alternative to see if this situation really fits what the prompt was asking about.
Put a different way, since our underlying question is what things might be done to prevent opportunistic behavior, is there something to be learned about that from Mason's example? I'm not sure. If there is, you should make that clear in your response.
After some thought I believe it's true that even if Mason had finished the race no one would have been directly "harmed". If the only or correct definition of opportunism is only possible through intentionally harming another for personal benefit then perhaps my post fails to fit the prompt and I apologize.
DeleteHowever, I believe that had Mason finished the race he would have benefited as a result of someone else's misfortune. Even though he probably did not directly cause the other runner to fall, he still would have won the race as a result of an arguably iniquitous situation. He was given the opportunity to reap a reward he may not have deserved but he chose not to. That is why I believe he didn't act opportunistically or take advantage of the situation.
With regards to the question "what might things be done to prevent opportunistic behavior", I do believe there is much to be learned from Mason's example. When Mason was given an opportunity to take advantage of an unfair situation, he decided against it because of his morals. I understand this is extremely idealistic and perhaps implausible, but perhaps a way to prevent opportunistic behavior would be to create environments where moral values are more highly regarded than rewards that can be gained by sacrificing those morals. Of course, this varies from person to person as people uphold different moral values but perhaps (again, very idealistic) if we had a society where people regarded fairness and truth heavily we would see less opportunistic behavior.