A

ccording to the CDC, 
permanent hearing loss 
begins at decibel levels of 
70. On March 11, 2023, when Yu 
Chang — an infielder playing for 
Chinese Taipei — hit a go-ahead 
grand slam, a decibel reader 
inside Taichung Intercontinental 
Stadium registered 118. 
En route to a 9-5 upset over the 
Netherlands, Yu Chang blasted 
the eardrums of 20,000 local 
fans and etched himself into 
Taiwanese baseball history. As 
he rounded second base (with the 
entirety of Taiwan on his back) 
Chang stretched both hands to 
the sky in disbelief and elation, 
the universal sign for “look 
what I’ve done.” Not a single fan 
was seated. The Chinese Taipei 
bench had jumped the dugout’s 
protective guardrail and were 
screaming in celebration. Even 
the coaches let joy usurp their 
usual 
stoic, 
administrative 
demeanor. 
The World Baseball Classic, 
which recently concluded with 
a storied battle between the 
USA and Japan, is a triennial 
international tournament played 
among 16 countries. Although 
the players do get paid for 
their participation, the most a 
player can walk away from the 
tournament with is $50,000 
— a paltry figure compared to 
major league contracts. For the 
most part, the players are there 
to represent their country and 
compete against the best athletes 
from around the world. 
“This is the funnest experience 
I’ve had on a baseball field,” said 
Los Angeles Angels center fielder 
Mike Trout of his time playing 
for Team USA. 
San Diego Padres outfielder 
Nelson 
Cruz 
echoed 
this 
sentiment, saying, “Everything 
you do for your country has a 
bigger significance. The WBC is 
the real World Series.” 
The World Baseball Classic is a 
recent example of sports’ unique 
ability to unite fans and players 
of a specific country or region. 
Even though the main prize is 
bragging rights, WBC games 
consistently 
produce 
mind-

boggling viewership numbers. 
They also show how exciting 
sports can be without financial 
incentives. When the underlying 
motivation for playing — and by 
extension, winning — is money, 
there is an upper bound to the 
passion and intensity players and 
fans bring to the stadium. 
Consider 
March 
Madness. 
The tournaments pit the best 
64 teams in women’s and men’s 
college basketball against each 
other in a hectic, electric, wholly-
unpredictable mad dash to the 
crown. 
March 
Madness 
draws 
millions of fans a year, and the 
men’s 
tournament 
repeatedly 
bests the NBA finals in terms of 
total viewers. If the players on 
the court are less recognizable 
than their NBA counterparts, 
shouldn’t there be a lot less 
people watching? 
Though newly instated NIL 
rules undoubtedly complicate 
collegiate athletes’ “amateur” 
status, the fact that only two 
men’s basketball players have a 
valuation over $1 million and that 
NIL deals are explicitly banned 
from 
having 
performance 
incentives draws a solid dividing 
line between the NBA and 
college basketball with respect to 
financial motivation.
Why do so many fans flock to 
their TVs, laptops and, if they’re 
lucky, local arenas to see players 
they’ve never known and colleges 
they’ve only just discovered 
play basketball? Because, in the 
absence of a substantial financial 
incentive, the athletes compete 
purely for the chance to win. 
About 
1% 
of 
collegiate 
basketball players will go pro, 
and, of those in the NBA, just over 
50% will suit up in a playoff game. 
If there are 15 players per team 
and 64 teams in a tournament, 
that means that we’d expect just 
under five players to reach the 
NBA playoffs in any given March. 
Five players. Ninety-nine point 
five percent of the 900+ players 
are participating in the biggest 
games of their lives; for many of 
them, the Madness is their last 
chance to play in any high-level 
tournament.
This is the crux of March 
Madness’ wild popularity. We 
watch 
because 
the 
athletes 

participating care deeply about 
every half, every possession and 
every second of the tournament. 
There is no load management or 
self-aggrandizing stat padding. 
They play to advance. They play 
to win.
The World Baseball Classic 
and March Madness have similar 
incentives on the players’ side and 
equally counterintuitive, massive 
viewer turnouts from fans. Their 
unifying property is the intensity 
and care that players display and 
have for each game they play. 
This intensity and this care is 
nurtured, not by any financial 
incentive, but by its absence. 
It is not fair to say that fans 
of 
professional 
sports 
lack 
excitement or that professional 
players 
don’t 
want 
to 
win. 
Fans’ support is not unlike 
the Taiwanese in the WBC or 
alumni at a March Madness 
game: They feel a connection 
to their community and fellow 
fans. The players, though, often 
don’t possess this degree of 
passion. Many have no personal 
connection to their teams and 
play for them simply because 
they were drafted and are being 
paid by the owners. 
This doesn’t mean that players 
can’t feel love for their city and 
their fans, but rarely do we see an 
athlete play for their professional 
club with the same passion they 
bring to their amateur team. 
When players show that passion, 
fans naturally and instinctively 
feed off of it.
Nelson Cruz’s quote was a part 
of a longer interview segment 
with six Dominican Republic 
players before their game against 
Puerto Rico. Each player, all of 
whom are rostered by a major 
league club, were asked whether 
they would rather win the World 
Baseball Classic or the World 
Series. Every single one said the 
WBC. 
“Representing 
our 
country 
has no price,” said Dominican 
Republic outfielder Ketel Marte.
It doesn’t. As kids, winning a 
sporting event instilled pride in 
ourselves and in the people who 
surrounded and supported us. A 
win was a communal effort, and 
celebrated as such. 

Opinion

It just means more

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
12 — Wednesday, April 5, 2023 

LUCAS SZENTGYORGYI
Opinion Columnist

Stanford Lipsey Student Publications Building
420 Maynard St. 
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
 tothedaily@michigandaily.com

Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890.

SHANNON STOCKING 
AND KATE WEILAND
Co-Editors in Chief

QUIN ZAPOLI AND 
JULIAN BARNARD
Editorial Page Editors

Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of The Daily’s Editorial Board. 
All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors.

EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS

Ammar Ahmad

Julian Barnard

Brandon Cowit

Jess D’Agostino

Ben Davis

Shubhum Giroti

Devon Hesano

Jack Kapcar

Sophia Lehrbaum

Olivia Mouradian

Siddharth Parmar

Rushabh Shah

Zhane Yamin

Nikhil Sharma

Lindsey Spencer

Evan Stern

Anna Trupiano

Jack Tumpowsky

Alex Yee

Quin Zapoli

JULIA VERKLAN AND 
ZOE STORER 
Managing Editors

Debates 
on the 
Diag

Content warning: this article 
contains mentions of suicide. 
T

ragedy does not wait 
for a convenient time or 
place to strike. It can be 
anything from the compounding 
effects 
of 
untreated 
mental 
health issues to a kidnapping in 
broad daylight, neither of which 
are anticipated by their victim. 
Prior to the rise of smartphone 
technology, medical personnel 
and law enforcement were the 
primary care providers on scene 
during a crisis. In the event 
that an elderly person fell or a 
teenager was hypoxic, protocols 
were nearly muscle memory 
to the millions of licensed 
professionals that chose a career 
in first response. Officers would 
clear 
the 
surrounding 
area 
while paramedics bandaged the 
wound. 
However, smartphones with 
messaging capabilities and an 
appeal to younger people opened 
a new avenue of crisis response: 
text lines. At the most basic level, 
someone in need simply sends 
an initial text to a short hotline 
number that assigns them an 
operator to chat with for the 
duration of their crisis. 
The diversity and breadth of 
services offered by crisis text 
lines is quite remarkable. They 
can offer tailored help — for 
domestic violence, trafficking, 
eating 
disorders, 
suicide 
or 
LGBTQ+ support — at different 
times of day, at national or 
local levels, anonymously or 
with police themselves. The 
University of Michigan is proud 
to offer its own 24/7 hotline 
through the Counseling and 
Psychological Services. 
The core function of crisis 

text line operators is to diffuse 
or deescalate situations of self-
harm or violence, with the 
ultimate goal of transferring 
care. At first glance, crisis text 
lines seem like an amazing and 
life-saving resource to turn to, 
especially when people would 
otherwise 
lack 
immediate 
mental health resources or the 
comfort of anonymity. However, 
these same selling points are 
also the reason why text lines 
don’t work well. 
The 
very 
nature 
of 
messaging 
platforms 
reveals 
a glaring limitation of crisis 
text 
lines. 
Text 
messaging 
lacks the nuances of verbal 
communication, such as tone 
of voice and facial expression, 
which can make it difficult for 
crisis operators to understand 
the full extent of an individual’s 
distress. Research demonstrates 
that 
physical 
gestures 
send 
crucial 
information 
between 
parties, such as feelings of 
trust and confirmed empathy. 
Additionally, delays in between 
messages can make it difficult 
for 
counselors 
to 
respond 
quickly and effectively to an 
individual in crisis as well as 
provide follow-up support. That 
is, if you are even paired with an 
operator in a timely manner to 
begin with. 
In 2022, I reached out to a 
crisis text line for the first time. 
I had witnessed the graphic 
death of three teenagers (people 
my age) who my colleagues and 
I were unable to resuscitate 
during a routine EMT shift, and 
I knew I needed help processing 
my guilt and blame. After texting 
HOME to 741741, I was put in a 
queue that lasted 37 minutes. 
This length of time was perfectly 
acceptable for someone in my 
“shoulder to lean on” situation. 
Had I been in imminent danger, 

however, it’s clear that lethal 
outcomes 
could’ve 
resulted 
in that time frame. Harvard 
University reports that in a 
study of 153 nearly-lethal suicide 
attempts, one in four survivors 
noted that their duration of 
suicidal ideation lasted less than 
five minutes before the real 
attempt.
To make matters worse, the 
short and surface-level training 
that operators receive prior to 
taking the stand generally offer 
band-aid solutions to victims, 
once they are finally connected 
to the platform. During roughly 
30 hours of training, crisis 
operators are taught scripts, 
how to gather information, build 
rapport and refer to licensed 
mental 
health 
professionals. 
These tasks aren’t something 
that just anyone with empathy 
and communication skills can do 
efficiently, let alone accomplish 
without any prior experience or 
licensure. 
Additionally, the volunteer 
nature of text lines almost 
devalues the work of mental 
health clinicians — as if anyone 
can just pick up a laptop and 
triage the exact kind of help 
victims need. Operators are 
also in a catch-22 of sorts — if 
they deviate from the scripted 
responses, they risk providing 
advice inappropriate for that 
specific crisis, but on the flip 
side sound like a robot if they 
stick to the generic “I hear you” 
and “That must be tough.” It 
is important to note that if the 
texter has a means, intent and a 
plan for self-harm, supervisors 
can step in to make the call of 
an active rescue. But why have 
we collectively let mental health 
services become so distant and 
electronic in the first place? 

Crisis text lines don’t work

MOSES NELAPUDI
Opinion Columnist 

Design by Edith Hanlon

Share your ideas with the Inclusive History Project

The Inclusive History Project (IHP) is preparing to study and 
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order to better understand our successes and failures in creating a truly 
inclusive university. We invite you to attend one of our forums to learn 
more about the IHP and to share your feedback.

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