[Current & Culture] "They're Athletes, So It Can't Be Helped"

Published 14 Apr.2023 16:18(KST)

Not long ago, I went to a certain high school library to hold an 'Author Meeting' event. They said the entire first-year class would attend. Indeed, about 200 students filled the auditorium. An author meeting usually goes like this: the librarian or the teacher in charge selects a theme book, students engage in reading activities together, the author is invited to give a lecture, hold a Q&A session and quizzes, sign books, and take photos. While the students read aloud parts of my book that impressed them, answered some quizzes, and received prizes, I watched the scene. Smiling and applauding.

When it was my turn to give a lecture, I began talking about why I wrote the book and various other stories. However, getting hundreds of people to focus?whether they are high school students or adults?is inherently very difficult. Not everyone was there because they wanted to be. Some students sitting in the back started chatting. Since this is common when giving lectures at schools, I continued speaking while looking at the students who showed interest. The librarian and other students paid even more attention to those who were chatting than I did. They wanted to tell them to be quiet but found it difficult to do so openly, and could only send me a sad gesture that they could do nothing about the situation.

After the event, the librarian’s first words to me were an apology. They said they kept shooting laser-like glares at them but it was no use, and since those students were athletes, other students couldn’t do anything either. Ah, I see, so they were athletes from this prestigious school’s sports team. It is very grateful that the athletes took their precious time to attend the event, but their attitude was neither that of athletes nor students who study.

Ironically, the topic of my lecture that day was about 'attitude.' I said that at some point, finding talented people became easy, but finding people with good attitudes became difficult. A person’s success is not only due to their ability or effort, but a good attitude makes their success sustainable. Perhaps the dreams of those athletes at that school are to become professional players or win medals at the Olympics. If they succeed and become professional players?for example, baseball players?every time they step up to the plate, the big scoreboard in the stadium will show their history: which elementary school they entered, which middle school, high school, and university they attended before reaching here. I have a baseball team I support, and I have season tickets to their home stadium, going whenever I have time. But if a player from that school steps up to bat, I don’t think I could cheer for him. Because I would think, Ah, those athletes from that school were not student-like in the classroom, they disrupted other students’ classes, and they did not have a good attitude as individuals.

School violence is not only about physically or mentally harming someone. Any act that disrupts others’ right to learn with a bad attitude at school is also school violence. Especially if one aims to become a public figure, they must be careful about their attitude wherever they are. Even if only a small number of athletes have such attitudes, if such experiences increase, everyone who attended school will become distant from sports. Because they will no longer want to spend their precious time, money, and heart watching those athletes on the field.

I sincerely hope that those with good attitudes also excel in sports.

Kim Minseop, Social and Cultural Critic