DE-FENSE!

I’ve participated in a wide variety of sports.  Water, land, individual, and team. I can’t say I excelled at all of them, or even any of them (I was so awful at basketball that I sometimes just pretend that never happened), but I’ve mostly stuck to playing defense when I played team sports. I played libero on my volleyball team, sweeper on my youth soccer team, and low defense in lacrosse. I had only a vague idea of what I was supposed to be doing in water polo, but my strength was still on defense.

Playing defense isn’t always that glamorous. You’re not usually the one that is scoring goals. If it’s in a sport like basketball or water polo, where all the players play both offense and defense, or if you’re in a position that plays both, like a midfielder, most of your accomplishments are still measured in terms of your offensive successes. Just my observation from watching hours upon hours of ESPN while working at a gym. Sportscasters would much rather talk about how many points or goals a player scored than how many points they prevented the other team from scoring. There isn’t even a real way to keep track of that. Defenders must depend on interceptions and caused turnovers for their main statistics. However, these do not accurately demonstrate defense ability either- you don't have to intercept or cause a turnover frequently to be an excellent and effective defender. One of the better methods of assessing a defender’s ability, in my personal opinion, is the plus/minus goal difference used in hockey. A player is given “plus one” for every goal scored by his or her team while he or she is on the ice, and a “minus one” for every goal the opposing team scores during that time.

So why am I writing all this? Well, I would hope that next time you watch a team sport, you notice what the defenders are doing. I’m admittedly biased, but I feel that excelling at defense is much harder than doing the same on offense. When you’re on the attack, the other team (or country-it’s the same in war) is waiting for your move. They’re waiting to react to your decisions. They can try and predict what you do, but you can always change your mind. I’ll run the other way. I’ll pass the ball instead of going to goal. In this regard, the defense is always a step behind. Always at a disadvantage.  What I’ve also noticed from my own experiences is that players on offense don’t necessarily have to communicate with each other or work together to score goals or points. It only takes one athlete sprinting down the court or field (faster than everyone else, of course) to score. Any one attack player could be a threat. That is why all d-players are needed to defend a goal, hoop, etc. A player on offense may not be doing anything, but defenders must keep an eye on all offensive players because they are all potential threats. The defense on any team must work together so that an attacker does not just sneak by. Also, everyone knows defenders are way cooler. You know how people always complain about Kobe never passing the ball (which, by the way, is so definitely true)? Well, playing defense does not really give you that much of a choice. You could run all the way up the field and try to score a goal, or attempt to set yourself up for a nice spike, but that's not the most effective use of your team's abilities. What can I say, us defenders are smart, awesome, and humble too. No gloryhounds here.
I could be wrong. Like I said, I'm clearly biased. People who play offense...any thoughts? Opinions? Think I'm out of my mind? Let me know in the comments section!