Sports doing drama better than arts?

As a passionate arts guy who spends his full day figuring out ways to increase participation in our arts and culture community, I am also a big sports fan. I know of many people who live on either the "arts only" island or the "sports only" island, not crossing the water to visit the other. Some of that separation starts early in childhood when we are figuring out what we are gifted (or not gifted) to do. I was actually very good at sports and a late bloomer to the arts world. I played high school football and baseball. It wasn't until college before I saw my first play. It wasn't that I had anything against the arts, I just never was exposed. Thus, I have a passion to be a catalyst for others to learn of the arts no matter the age. I grew up in a really small town and my family had no money, so I was never presented with the opportunity to be a part of the arts.

Well, for those "arts only" people, the Indianapolis Colts won the Super Bowl on Sunday. I am from Indiana, so as a fan, I got to share in the glory, along with my three-year-old son. That would be Dylan dressed in his "I want to be Peyton Manning" outfit to the left. After watching the hours of pre-game, I was struck once again how sports have taken a page or maybe the whole book from the arts to promote the actual game. If you follow sports, there is a story played out in any game and plenty of drama, but sports have gone beyond the game. The Super Bowl is the premiere sporting event in our country, so it is even more magnified, but the amount of drama and story telling building up to the game was done so well, that even if you were not a football fan, you would be hard pressed not to be engrossed in some form.

I read an recent article in Arts Reach (http://www.artsreach.org/), "What Can the Arts Learn from Sports?" This gist in the article is that sports do a better job of being a place of pride for the community and connecting the fans with the players than the arts do. There is much we could debate about, but I think the writer missed the point about sports really borrowing and then enhancing the drama surrounding the game. The arts are about telling a story, whether the medium is stage or canvas. Where we could learn from sports is the build up. Every story about the people involved is uncovered in sports. By the time you get to the game, if you are not a true fan, it could almost be a let down. What else could we learn from sports? Sports fill a great need in humanity for many. My son has a hero figure in Peyton Manning to model himself. The arts also fill a great place in humanity. Sports have borrowed from our stage. What can we borrow from sports?

I know that sports have more coverage, 24-hour television and radio, but instead of whining about it, what can we do about it? Have we asked the Sentinel why it doesn't do an arts insert for high school students to showcase what is being accomplished like it does for high school sports students weekly? Are we open enough as a community? Could we do a better job of telling our story before we tell our story? Do we take ourselves too seriously? It isn't about converting the "unchurched" sports fan to become an arts aficionado or vice versa. Many audience research studies show that it is more about participation anyway. The last evidence I saw was that 60% of sport attendees also attend the arts. It was more about finding people who are active. My questions circle around what as a community we could do to promote ourselves better so that more people who are active participate in all that our arts community has to offer. In the meantime, I will relish the Colts victory and see you at the show.