Sport has the power to change the world - Inspirational stories of Nelson Mandela and others

JOHANNESBURG – Francois Pienaar of South Africa receives the William Webb Ellis Trophy from President Nelson Mandela after the Rugby World Cup final between South Africa and New Zealand held on June 24, 1995 at Ellis Park in Johannesburg, South Africa. South Africa won the match 15-12. (Photo by David Rodgers/Getty Images)

“Sport has the power to change the world. It has the power to inspire. It has the power to unite people in a way that little else does. It speaks to youth in a language they understand. Sport can create hope where once there was only despair.”

These words were spoken by the late, great Nelson Mandela. As perhaps the greatest champion of equal rights and anti-apartheid in human history, Mandela is not immediately associated with sports. What he achieved in his lifetime made him an icon of the political world and of the humanitarian world, but he would never be considered an icon of the sporting world.

However, the former South African President can teach us far more about sport than we would perhaps ever realise.

Sports fans like you and me spend our days arguing over refereeing mistakes, evaluating player performances and predicting results. We do this simply because it is interesting, because we have grown up playing or watching these games and it has become an integral part of our lives. But we don’t really think about what sport does beyond that. For those without trials or tribulations in their lives, sport is usually nothing more than a pastime; a hobby enjoyed when time allows.

But sport holds a far more important function, one that Nelson Mandela realised and came to share with the world. He understood that sport, unlike anything else in our world, can be a great vehicle for change. He recognised the transformative and unifying power of sports, and he used that power to attack apartheid in a way that protests and diplomacy could not.

Championing the Springboks

24 JUN 1995: Nelson Mandela waves to the crowd as South Africa win the 1995 Rugby World Cup. Mandela was met with cheers of his name by the majority-white crowd (Mandatory Credit: David Rogers/ALLSPORT)

In 1994, Mandela was sworn in as the first black president of South Africa, just four years after being released from a lifetime prison sentence. Two years earlier in 1992, South Africa had been awarded the Rugby World Cup, and when Mandela took to office, he was expected to refuse to host the event.

The President, however, allowed the competition to proceed, even though rugby was a decidedly white-leaning sport. The South African national team had only one non-white player, and the black community hated the team for many reasons, seeing their green jerseys as symbols of apartheid repression.

Nevertheless, in 1995, Mandela’s fractured nation did indeed play host to the Rugby World Cup. The South African team performed well in the competition, making it all the way to the final of the competition against New Zealand. It was a tense time for the entire nation, and as the final approached the possibility of rioting and violence loomed large.

But Mandela recognised the potential for unity behind a Springbok banner, and convinced the nation to pull together as one and root for their national side. In one of his most iconic moments, before a crowd of 65,000 that was almost completely white, Mandela strode on to the field in Johannesburg wearing a Springboks jersey. The crowd, silent at first, burst out with a chant of “Nelson! Nelson! Nelson!”

South Africa went on to win the game in one of sporting history’s most famous moments. South Africans, both black and white, shared together in the victory, and by doing so created a new, more hopeful future for their nation.

The unity of South Africa was one of the crowning achievements of sport, and a true testament to its power if wielded in the proper way. However, uniting a country is just one of the amazing things that sport can accomplish. It has applications for improving individual lives as well as entire nations, to reach out and give hope to those who have none. Mandela himself understood this as well as anyone.

During his time as a political prisoner in the brutal conditions of Robben Island, Mandela helped organize a sports program. He and other isolation prisoners became fans of the prison soccer teams that played weekly matches in the general section of the prison.

The authorities eventually built a wall to prevent Mandela and others from sharing in the pleasure of the soccer matches, but the effect of the games had already been felt. Years after his release from prison, Mandela described the prison soccer matches as “more than a game. It can create hope where there was once despair … this game made us feel alive.”

Mandela captured the sentiment perfectly. Sport can bring hope and purpose to a life that is void of any. It can bring someone back from the brink and give him something to cling to. But this power is not solely reserved for prisoners.

Kicking their way out of poverty

Soccer brings hope to thousands, perhaps millions of people all over the world. However, perhaps no one is more grateful for the sport than the people of Penha, until recently one of Rio de Janeiro’s most notorious and dangerous favelas.

The streets of Penha were run by an armed and violent drug gang that the police could not match. They dealt in drugs and violence, with the local hospital dealing with an average of 120 bullet wounds a night. The air there is thick with the stench of sewage, and animals roam the narrow and dirty streets.

However, this is Brazil, so there is always a place to play football. Football is the escape here.

Nanko van Buuren, a psychiatrist by trade, came to Brazil in 1987 to lift children away from organised crime and poverty. On his now 25 year mission, Van Buuren has helped almost 4,000 children in 68 favelas.

The secret, he says, is soccer. “I started by talking to the drug soldiers and telling them they would be dead by 21 if they carried on trafficking,” he told the BBC. “No one had ever talked to these boys and explained to them there was another way – a way that did not involve organised crime.”

Football gives kids in Brazil a chance to move away from the violence in the favelas (credit: bbc.co.uk)

Van Buuren is using soccer to change the way of life here. One of his greatest students is Max, a former drug lord and gang leader who used to run the slums in Penha.

Van Buuren brought him back into Penha, but in a very different capacity. “We take ex-drug bosses, like Max, and ex-drug soldiers and show them how to coach football to the kids,” Van Buuren says. “Here they are role models to show children that organised crime is not the solution.”

The plan seems to be working. Max himself admitted in an interview with the BBC that “Without football, I’d probably be dead“. Such was the severity of his situation, and such was the saving power of his nation’s favourite sport, that it brought Max back from the dead.

It is amazing what sport can do in violent situations. Through soccer, Max tore himself away from a life of violence in the favelas. However, decades before him, on December 24th 1914, the sport did the exact same thing for hundreds of men in the most violent situation ever seen on this planet – World War One.

The Christmas Truce

Soldiers from the opposing German and British forces play a game of football on Christmas day 1914 (credit: soulofagardner.wordpress.com)

There is evidence, collected through many letters written by soldiers at the time, to suggest that on the night before Christmas in the first year of the Great War, a German messenger walked across No Man’s Land to broker a temporary cease-fire agreement between the German and British forces.

The cease fire was agreed, and shortly after the bullets stopped flying, a football was kicked out from the British lines into No Man’s Land. In a bizarre and wonderful turn of events, an impromptu football match then broke out between the two opposing sides.

Men who had spent weeks and months trying desperately to kill each other shared the field in a friendly game of their favourite pastime. Soccer had given them a blissful distraction from the horrors of their predicament, and gave the two sides a common shared interest with which they could return some form of normalcy to a far from normal circumstance.

Mitchell’s moment

Sport not only has an effect on soldiers, apartheid torn countries and the impoverished children of the favelas, but can also be a powerful instrument in much safer environments, such as the confines of a school gym in a first world country. That was certainly the case for students of Coronado High School in El Paso, Texas.

Perhaps the most committed member of the Coronado High School basketball team is team manager Mitchell Marcus. Mitchell, however, has a developmental disability. He has been a part of the team for three years, but because of his disability had never been able to play the game.

However, in the last game of the regular season, Coach Peter Morales decided to put his most dedicated player into the game. What happened next is one of the most encouraging, compassionate and uplifting things you will ever see in a sporting contest, and I urge you watch the two minute video of Mitchell’s story:

Thankfully, stories like Mitchell’s aren’t in isolation.

The “Keith Special”

This November, the football team at Olivet Middle School in Michigan did something that only children can; they taught us all a lesson in the goodness of human beings during something as simple as a routine football game.

As part of an elaborate plan that was weeks in the making and of which their coaches had no knowledge whatsoever, the team decided to intentionally not score on a play. Sheridan Hedrick, the team’s running back, received a hand-off and would’ve easily scored a touchdown, but to the disappointment of the home crowd he instead took a knee on the 1-yard line.

All this was specifically designed to set up the next play – the “Keith Special.”

“Keith” refers to young Keith Orr; a member of the school’s football team and, like Mitchell Marcus, a special needs child. By the kindness of his buddies on the football team, Keith came in on the next play and was given the chance to run for a touchdown.

This is another short video that is well worth your while. Watch the event unfold:

The boys on the team did much more than help Keith score a touchdown that day. They set an example for how to treat others, they showed great friendship, and they brought a community together.

Sport has the power to change the world

Acts like these bring hope and happiness to people in great suffering, and that is the most important thing to take away here. But they also teach us the true art of compassion. They teach us to always include those less fortunate than ourselves, to reach out and help people as often as we can. That to be a good person is often more important than winning a sporting contest.

“Sport has the power to change the world “. It can change the world for a nation, as the Rugby World Cup did for Mandela’s South Africa, or for an individual suffering a personal plight. It can be a lasting legacy or a momentary joy. It can help us come together as a community in celebration, in mourning or in rebuilding. It can be a distraction in difficult times and a joy at the best of them.

The true power of sport is that it can be whatever we need it to be. It can lift a child out of a violent favela. It can bring blissful distraction from the horrors of a violent war. It can bring joy to a single disadvantaged child and bring an entire community together.

That is what sport is truly about. It is not about medals, championships or the multi-million dollar contracts. It is about the precious moments when someone’s life is made just that little bit better.

“Sport can create hope where once there was only despair”. Mr Mandela was a wise man.