RE: Comparing sumo with American sports

["Joshua A. Reyer" <jreyer@grn.mmtr.or.jp>]

Hmmm...  This smells like a topic guaranteed to create longstanding
rivalries, alienate friends, and divide the ML.  But, it's not henka, so I
guess I'll take a crack at it.  The below is entirely my opinion, so take it
with as much salt as is necessary.

Ozumo, like American football, European football (er, soccer), and baseball,
is a professional sport.  It may not always act like it is, it may try and
run away from the appelation, but nevertheless, it is such an organization.
One thing that sets Ozumo apart from other professional sports is its strict
adherence to tradition.  In many ways this is a good thing; it allows us a
window into an earlier time and it prevents needless and destructive
showboating and gloating.  But there can be too much of a good thing.  Ozumo
right now appears to me to be like Major League Baseball still playing
deadball-era style baseball well into the nineties.  My beef with Ozumo and
tradition goes into a different, only slightly related topic, so we'll leave
it here for now, but suffice to say that the adherence to tradition is one
of the things that seems to make Ozumo different from other professional
sports.

But are Oyakata as Coaches?  Bobinaitogawa-beya?  Well, this actually breaks
down into something pretty much unrelated to culture.  Sumo Heyas are not
teams.  Bobby Knight's goal, as a coach, is to take a group of players and
make them function well as a team, to play against other teams, and be the
best team.  Despite Futa Factors and Musashi-factors, sumo is not a team
sport.  Logjams sometimes happen, but sumo is still a one on one sport, and
this alters the role of the "coach" considerably.  The sumo heya is more
like a particular boxing gym than a professional team.  The oyakata's main
duty is to whap the young guys in the butt with a big bamboo cane until they
either peak out, retire, or become sekitori.

I sense this post grows long, so I will spare my readers ocular discomfort
and save the rest for a later post...

Josh Reyer