‘Coaching For Character’ Says It All
Sportsmanship isn’t exactly dead, or the high sheriffs of high school, college and professional sport would not have tried to tone down some of the most flagrantly abusive behavior among participants.
Taunting, talking trash and chest-thumping, gesticulating, bombastic rituals of self-promotion were fast becoming the norm, and the psychobabble excuses of social scientists and gutless coaches could not mask the obvious demise of sportsmanship. The spitting Roberto Alomar, the biting Mike Tyson and freak-show pervert Dennis Rodman offer continuing examples.
Traditionalists long for the days of Tom Landry, who forbade end-zone histrionics by demanding that his hot-shot running backs act as if it weren’t the first time they’d been there.
They long also for the humility exhibited by Mickey Mantle, who, rather than punching the air with clenched fist in triumph, kept his head down and his eyes on the ground in front of him as he trotted around the bases after blasting a home run, so as not to further embarrass the pitcher he had victimized.
No less a sports hero than all-star pro basketball player Kareem Abdul-Jabbar once expressed sadness during a “60 Minutes” interview in referring to the deterioration of the spirit of sportsmanship in his game, and by extension, in American society:
“Our whole culture here in America has become a lot more vulgar. And I think it’s not considered cool to be a good sportsman. You’re considered square and soft…. There’s the whole process of celebration that’s gone beyond celebration. It’s taunting. I pity the people who are doing this, because they really don’t understand: Sports is a step away from the rule of the jungle, and they’re trying to move it back toward the jungle, when the strong survive and misuse the weaker in any way that they want. And that’s really unfortunate for our whole system of values in our country.”
Those very concerns prompted two philosophy professors to examine more deeply the nature of sport and its place in the great cosmic scheme of things. Craig Clifford of Tarleton State University in Stephenville and Randolph Feezell of Creighton University in Omaha, Neb., conspired to write a recently published little book, “Coaching for Character.” Not only are they accomplished academics, but each is an athlete with coaching experience - Clifford for four years as tennis coach at Tarleton State and Feezell with several years at various levels, from kids’ league to college, in baseball.
These two learned and articulate men are not your proverbial jocks.
The book is directed to coaches, and if all it did was to serve as a manual to guide coaches as “educators” of young athletes in the broadest sense of the term, it would be an important contribution and should be on every school superintendent’s and college athletic director’s required reading list for the coaches they employ.
But it also plunges into far deeper currents, beyond the “what” and “how,” and delves into the “why” of sport. Although Clifford and Feezell clearly love the competitive aspects of “the game,” they are no less devoted to exploring how the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat relate to more profound, enduring questions about the purpose of all human activity and the spirit of striving for excellence. They are concerned with matters of character.
Such questions, the authors insist, demand reflective thought on the part of coaches, and players, to the extent their maturity allows, about what is truly valuable in life. Despite the worn cliches, “the game” is not life, nor is it really a metaphor for life, but is only a part of the human experience.
As such, the competitive experience is valuable in itself so long as the game remains in perspective - finding the golden equilibrium between the joyful liberation of “play” and the struggle for excellence that “serious” competition makes possible. This equilibrium rests on the fulcrum of respect - for self, teammates, opponents, coaches, officials and the game itself, its rules, its history and its traditions.
“Coaching for Character” draws on the wisdom of the ages, from Aristotle and Socrates to John Wooden, legendary former UCLA basketball coach. The text weaves deftly and instructively between suggestions to coaches for the conduct of workouts to Aristotelian meditations on the practice of virtue in pursuit of wisdom and the care of the soul.
Because of the pervasiveness of sports in our culture, then, this book is too important to be confined to coaches. This sports-crazed society, suckered into a virtual blood-lust obsession with “winning” at any cost, has been sending some grim signals to impressionable youngsters about how they should behave. By so many of their elders’ example, respect, decency, civility and adhering to the rules hardly appear on the scope, so “Coaching for Character” has some compelling insights for all of us.
Aristotle offered a timeless truism: “The unexamined life is not worth living.” Clifford and Feezell invoke the ancient Greek master in issuing an age-old challenge to all (not just coaches) to reflect on our stewardship of virtue, character and care of the soul. Sport is one sphere of life in which that examination can happen, and getting an early start is all the better.
“Why not exhort young athletes,” the authors ask, “to be as good and as wise as possible when they play their games, as well as in life as a whole?”
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The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Tommy Denton Fort Worth Star-Telegram