Creating A Sport Community of Character
We
all know something of the challenges and unfairness in contemporary sport. Even
on the arrival of this new millennium, opportunities to participate and excel in
sports are limited by economic circumstances, discriminatory practices and
expectations based on stereotypes. Athletes who achieve some measure of
excellence face extreme pressure, both in terms of reward and punishment, to go
for the win - no matter what. The "win at all cost" mentality is a
huge problem, even in youth sport. Coaches and athletic directors, whose jobs
too often depend, not on their performance, but on that of young people in their
program, encounter countless ethical dilemmas about how to balance their own
professional interests with the needs of the athletes for whom they are
responsible. Athletic trainers, sport psychologists and sports physicians are
enticed, sometimes coerced, into enhancing athletes' performance at the expense
of those athletes' health and well-being.
I
think we all struggle, philosophically and practically, with the realities of
sport. These struggles are the starting point for our efforts to work for
change.
I
don't believe it is in our capacity to create a perfect sport culture, but there
is nothing necessary or inevitable about the present sport culture. We can do
better. And to do better, we need help from everyone involved.
Sports
can and should be a place for fun and excitement, for joy, even ecstasy. Sports
can contribute to participants' health and wholeness, to their psychological,
physical, social and spiritual development. But even more important, sports can
and should be courts of justice, venues for rejuvenating ideals and promoting
the character needed to work toward those ideals.
The person is not
passively socialized into such virtues, but must actively reconstruct them as
her or his cognitive and emotional capacities increase. I've experienced it as a
parent and teacher. Thus, we must be sensitive to developmental progressions,
and tailor our educational environments so that they are age-appropriate. This
becomes especially important when we talk about something like developing
citizenship through sport. Sport programs, and the sport teams that they
sponsor, can offer one of the best alternatives for an apprenticeship in
citizenship through sportsmanship. Just what would sport programs and teams look
like if they were to take this effort seriously? I like the idea of building
within our sport programs and teams into communities of character. For a
community of character to exist, there must be, of course, a shared sense of
community. Most students just don't experience a sense of attachment or
belonging to a group in their academic lives. Research has shown that
extra-curricular activities like sports provide students with a sense of
themselves as part of a whole. In these activities, each person feels that she
or he has something to contribute, and the rewards earned for participation and
performance are for the whole as well as the individual. A community of
character is a community that fosters the development of character, and the
members value the community because of its character. Athletes who are members
of a community of character have a sense of belonging to the team. They care
about the team and its members; they are willing to make sacrifices for the
others on the team, and they know that the team depends on them. The goals of
the team are ultimately superior goals, they are beyond what any one member of
the team can accomplish, and so team members experience a sense of solidarity
that transcends individual, ethnic, and friendship group interests. But for a
community of character, this solidarity goes beyond concerns about wins and
losses. In fact, a community of character teams supports a member's willingness
to risk success in order to demonstrate good sportsmanship, or to protect the
well being of an opponent. In a community of character, there is a sharing of
leadership functions. The student who is not given opportunity to practice
relevant arts and skills will not learn the craft. This may also be the most
challenging aspect of developing a community of character for coaches and sport
officials. Today, most of children's sport opportunities are organized by
adults, coached by adults, refereed by adults, and watched by adults. We need to
find ways of returning sports to the children, at least to some degree, at the
youth sport level; and at all levels. We need to find ways to share leadership
and decision-making. We need to explore possibilities of democratic leadership
in sports, and identify ways sport participants can be empowered to shape the
common life of the team. Finally, a community of character sport team helps
athletes connect what they are learning through their sport experience with
other dimensions of their lives. Sport teams can provide our young people with a
taste of what it means to belong to a group, and to care about that group's
welfare. Having tasted what it means to belong to a community of character,
athletes are more likely to become more engaged members of their schools, and
their local, national, and international communities. Sport teams can be a kind
of transitional community, bridging family and the wider society.
Sport has a rich and
almost inexhaustible store of lessons, metaphors, and paradigms that can be
drawn upon. As athletes learn about goal setting, teamwork, anger management and
dealing with fatigue, these skills can easily be linked to parallel situations
outside sport. Since competition in its various forms and settings will be with
a person throughout life, the ability to face the challenges of competition is
essential by facing the challenges of competition, and I don't mean learning to
win; I mean learning to sustain integrity. Without the ability to sustain one's
commitment to the virtues of character in the face of competition, character
fails us.
When we survey the
contemporary world of sport, we see a multitude of sins; we see corruption and
cheating, violence and vanity. But perhaps these are so evident to us precisely
because sport provides such a rich and visible context for developing and
testing the metal of character.
By fostering sport
teams that are communities of character, we can renew what has been lost in
sports today…. a sense of pride through virtuous behavior.
Dr.
Michael Steward Sr.
Executive
Director-Kokusai Senshu Tokukai
The International Champions of Virtue Association
