Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1992-01-15, Page 5THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 15,1992. PAGE 5. Winning's great but it isn't everything Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing. The late, great head coach Vince Lombardi is supposed to have delivered that philosophical dictum to his Green Bay Packers football players umpteen Superbowls ago. It's been chanted approvingly by everybody from Little League cheerleaders to late night sports announcers ever since. Pity. As a maxim, it succinctly summarizes everything that is wrong with professional sports. Winning isn't the only thing - or it shouldn't be. It is sport, not war that we're talking about. Sport is made up of games, and games are meant to be played, not merely won or lost. Believing that ‘Winning Is All’ leads directly to the slippery slope of steroids, blood-doping and surreptitious, potentially lethal “spears” when the refs back is turned. Winning at all costs has smeared the history of the sport with some pretty hideous blotches. Thoroughbreds being ridden until wl International Scene Countries can’t live in isolation BY RAYMOND CANON The surprise Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbour in 1941 certainly woke the American nation up in a big hurry and, if you were watching television on the weekend of Dec. 7-8, you were witness to the extensive coverage which the American press gave it. In one way we should not have been surprised at this sort of coverage; the Americans are well known for it. However, the fact that the country is engaged in a war of another kind with Japan should not prevent viewers from realizing that things have changed dramatically in the 50 years since that “day of infamy”. It is, therefore, very difficult to draw parallels. To me the one thing that best depicts this change was a cartoon which appeared earlier this year. It was in two parts, the first of which showed a newspaper heading dated 1941. It declared “Japs bomb Pearl Harbour.” The second section showed yet another heading dated 1991. It said simply, “Japs buy Pearl Harbour.” In short Japan has achieved by economic means what it failed to do 50 years earlier by military means. It is no longer a threat to the supremacy of the United States; it is an equal. It will, become even greater when it leams another lesson which the Americans had forced upon them at Pearl Harbour; in the twentieth century you simply cannot live a life of isolation for very long without paying a stiff price. The Japanese have always been a very insular nation. By and large foreigners have been made to feel unwelcome and inferior; one has only to look at how the Koreans have been treated since the end of World War II. In essence, the Japanese look upon their hearts burst. Ben Johnson, of course. Cassius Clay coming out of his comer half­ blinded because of something “accidentally” smeared on his sponge between rounds. The ugliest win-at-all costs incident I ever witnessed, albeit on television, was perpetrated by Team Canada during a game with the Soviets back in 1972. The Russians had the fabulous Valery Kharlamov, an amazing skater and stickhandler who could have played with any NHL team any time. He was a real thorn in the side for Our Guys until Canadian forward Bobby Clarke solved the problem in classic Lombardian fashion. Coming up behind him, Clarke uncorked a vicious two-handed slash at the Russian's already injured ankle. “We had to slow him down” Clarke explained later. He certainly did. Kharlamov's ankle was shattered and his hockey career was over. But hey - we won, didn't we? Which is not to make the Russians out as saintly, Marquis of Queensbury types. They could be as swinish a pack of thugs as ever laced on a skate, when the ref wasn't watching. But that's just the point. The Russians believed, too, that ‘Winning’ Was the Only Thing. That being on top at the final whistle justified whatever you had to do to get there. Obviously, Vince Lombardi has been By Raymond Canon themselves as superior and have attempted to keep their race as pure as possible, believing quite strongly that any mixture of foreign blood would only have a negative effect on the country. One Japanese writer even went so far as to point out to the Americans that one of the main reasons for their decline was the mixture of races which has taken place in the United States. This brought forward an almost immediate protest but I do not recall that the book occasioned any great amount of criticism at home; it was simply something that most Japanese take for granted. Be that as it may, the fact remains that the Japanese presence is very real and complaining about it is not going to make it go away. In this very competitive world the Japanese have learned to compete with the best of them. To cite one well known example, whatever we may think of the Japanese and their ideas about race, we certainly like to buy their cars when it comes to price and quality. In a world where protectionism dies hard, consumers have been short-changed many times during the past 25 years but, thanks to the entry of the Japanese into the automobile industry, the Letters to the Editor iiiii THE EDITOR, I would like to take this opportunity to thank the citizens of Blyth, on behalf of our Board of Directors and member agencies. Their support of the Blyth Village Christmas is one more example of the caring spirit of our community. Thanks to the organizers and all those who supported Huron United Way with their gifts of time, food, and money. translated into Russian. Which brings us to Bernie Nicholls. Bernie’s been a pro hockey player for years, primarily with the New York Rangers. He's used to the ups and downs not to mention the bumps and stitches that come with that icy territory. Last fall, Nicholls was traded to the Edmonton Oilers. If he'd been true to the form established by hundreds of pro players before him, Nicholls would have packed his duffel bag, sold his New York house and started checking the real estate section of the Edmonton Journal. But Bernie Nicholls did an unheard-of thing. He said he wasn't interested. And it wasn't a grandstand play for more money or a juicier contract - Nicholl's said he wouldn’t go because his wife had just had twins. It was a difficult birth, and his wife was still not well. “This is the time when my wife needs me most” said Nicholls simply. He wanted to stay in New York, close to his wife's doctor and the nurses who are familiar with the babies. It's a heretical attitude - and a costly one. He was dinged a quarter of a million dollars in lost salary. Bemie Nicholls must be some kind of nut. Doesn't he know that Winning Is The Only Thing? same consumers get a much better deal on cars than they used to when the “Big Three” were running the show. It took the Second World War to get the Americans out of their isolationist mould; it will take increased world trade to get the Japanese out of theirs. They cannot sit back and sell goods to the rest of the world, no matter how high quality these goods may be, and expect to keep their markets all but closed to foreign goods. They, too, are going to have to bite the bullet harder than they have so far. A case in point is rice. Japanese rice farmers, mostly possessing only a few acres, are subsidized so heavily that rice costs six times as much at home as it does on world markets. For years the Japanese government has been promising these farmers that not one ounce of foreign rice would land in Japan. Not any more! Today the same government is trying to determine ways how to let no less than 500,000 tons of foreign rice in. It is not going to be easy but it has to be done. The Americans learned from a world war; the Japanese from world trade. For both it has been a painful lesson but a necessary one. There are many ways to recognize the needs of our neighbours in these trying times. Sharing the job and fellowship of the Christmas spirit as you have in Blyth is a very special way. Thanks to you it works ... for all of us. Glen Sauve For the Board of Directors Huron United Way. Letter from the Editor By Keith Roulston We need to take pride in doing a job well Canada, we keep hearing people tell us, is facing a crisis in competitiveness and nearly all of us can cite an example of how things have gone astray along the way. Our auto industry, for instance, has been in a losing battle for nearly two decade now with cheaper and often superior produce from Europe and Japan. Many is the car owner who can tell you, particularly in the bad old days, about some incredibly deficient piece or workmanship in a North American car. A lot of workers, particularly a few years ago, were more interested in putting in their eight hours and collecting a good paycheque than they were in doing their job well. Or take the piece of mail we sent off the other day. It was addressed to a store on The Square in Goderich. A couple of days later, the letter came back, stamped "moved, address unknown." The store had moved two doors away. Same street. Same postal code. Same postal carrier who would deliver it. We contacted the store to get the correct new address and found out they've had a lot of their mail being sent back. Now we all know the post office has been having its problems for quite a while now but the attitude shown here is not unique to the post office. The post office is, however, somewhat synonymous of what's gone wrong with much of our industry. There was a time when the people who worked at the post office took pride in being able to deliver any piece of mail, no matter how badly botched the address might be. Today, postal workers seem to have the attitude that it's up to customers to get everything right and if the customer goofs something in the address, then he or she deserves not to have the letter delivered. Part of this is a labour problem, part a management problem. It's obvious to anybody that many postal workers don't have the kind of pride in their work they had 40 years ago. Many feel they have been given the shaft by their bosses and are prepared to give the shaft back. Canada Post's labour relations has been abysmal. There seems to be a constant war with workers at a time when successful companies in the rest of the world have found new ways of co-operating with employees and getting them to take pride in their work. The attitude Canada Post gives to all but its largest customers is that "you guys better shape up and play the game by our rules or we'll put you in your place." About once a week we get a new regulation from Canada Post that must be accepted or it will mean poorer service or more expense. Let's not just pick on the post office here. A lot of our businesses have a "them" and "us" attitude with employees and management. The problem is on both sides, with a militant labour movement that can't see the boss ever as anything but the enemy and that won't give an inch, sometimes even if it means the plant will close. Employers, on the other hand, are often pig-headed about being open and honest with workers. We in Canada are trying to compete with other countries that have learned to build a partnership between management and workers, realizing that it takes the best ideas of everybody to make things work. That lack of partnership in Canada is perhaps part of the reason we don't take pride in doing a job well anymore. Too often we have a chip on our shoulder, either trying to get back at the boss, or the customer who sometimes seems unreasonably demanding. We all have our good days and our bad days, but Canada’s had a bad couple of decades now, with the level of service we offer, with our pride in our jobs, slipping. We've got to rekindle the pride of doing things well.