In sports, winning or losing can mean the raise of the social status of the winner and his complete race, as it can also mean disgrace and dishonor because of shame or powerlessness. On the one hand, Maya Angelou addresses the importance of a sport for a complete ethnic group of people, and how they were fighting for important ideals, such as rights and equality. Angelou also addresses the impact of the victory of one person in the life of everyone. On the other hand, Wilfrid Sheed addresses how perspectives about sports have changed from being a bad thing, to be a good thing since the 19th century. Sheed also addresses how the purpose of practicing a sport has changed throughout the time and as a consequence, playing a sport today does not…show more content… “If Joe lost we were back in slavery and beyond help. It would all be true; the accusations that we were lower types of human beings” (Angelou 486). They were not competing by nothing else than pride and glory to demonstrate that black people were equal to white people, that black people can also have power and can be “strong”. On the contrary, Sheed points out that today, sports have become just a way to profit, sport players only seek the money that sports can generate, and also that sports do not mean as much as they used to for actual sport players. “For all the new athletes, the Big Game is just another payday” (Sheed 496). Moreover, Sheed also claims that schools have a big part of responsibility in the lack of true enthusiasm of practicing a sport by paying students in order to play. “The school that pays its students to play games for it not only loses some of its integrity as a school, it is also saying that playing is only work” (Sheed 497). As a result, students only think about how much money they will make when enrolling a sport instead of thinking how many transcendental things can be achieved through…show more content… “Throwing and catching a ball is work-and that even this depends on what kind of ball you’re using. A football equals work, a volleyball is only play. Players work, cheerleaders have fun. Shooting baskets is work, helping to clean up afterward is its own reward” (Sheed 497). Every sport requires hard physical training, commitment, practice and hard work. Every sport is also hard in its own way and cannot be compared to other sports to tell which one is better. There are also people who are not involved in any sports and that does not mean they are a lower class of people or students, because everyone is free to choose what they like and what they want to participate in. Sheed argues that when universities give money to its athletes to play, they encourage this kind of distinction between students and also promote the misperception that a certain sport is superior to other because of the payment that players receive. Money is sometimes the main motivation for a player to enroll a sport, and other times, the motivation is to feel superior to the rest of the students, to only seek for pride and recognition. While Sheed addresses the seek of inequality, Angelou addresses the main reason to play a sport back in the days: