Athletic Coda 2007
We've been working with the new crop of athletes for the 2007 West Ranch JV football team, so I felt it was time to set some things straight about how I feel towards sport.
To start, a definition:
Athlete
Can be found at the youth, high school, college, and professional levels. An individual who participates in sports. Characterized by dedication, focus, intelligence, and work ethic. Athletes usually are overshadowed in high school by Jocks; they are too busy to do much grandstanding. Most pro players are athletes rather than jocks.
The athlete is intelligent, hard-working, and a decent human being. He has fallback plans for the future in case he can't play pro. The jock is arrogant, stupid, lazy, and a jerk. He has no plans for the future beyond high school whatsoever.
Jocks are drinking and messing around with cheerleaders while athletes are training, studying, or participating in worthwhile extracurriculars.
Next, here is the Athenian Oath, rewritten to fit the circumstances of an athlete at West Ranch High School:
We will never bring disgrace to this, our school by any act of dishonesty or cowardice, nor ever desert our suffering comrades in the ranks; we will fight for the ideal and sacred things of the school, both alone and with many; we will revere and obey the school's laws and do our best to incite a like respect in those above us who are prone to annul or set them at naught; we will strive unceasingly to quicken the student body's sense of school pride. Thus, in all these ways, we will transmit this school not only not less, but greater and more beautiful than it was transmitted to us.
Last, a brief paragraph on the Athenian Ideal as it pertained to sport:
The Athenians did not play sports just to keep fit, and they didn’t play sports to win glory for themselves or even for their cities. They felt that the development of the body and of the spirit went together. They also saw that the artistic and the athletic were expressions of one another. For example, to train in public speaking, they practiced the javelin throw (“taking hold” of a subject, having an “accurate delivery” in order to be “on target.”) while those who wanted to become better philosophers were encouraged to participate in wrestling (“grappling” with life’s questions). Sports was not intended to produce sportsmen or warriors, but to produce well rounded, harmonious human beings.
I hope I can instill these values in my athletes.
To start, a definition:
Athlete
Can be found at the youth, high school, college, and professional levels. An individual who participates in sports. Characterized by dedication, focus, intelligence, and work ethic. Athletes usually are overshadowed in high school by Jocks; they are too busy to do much grandstanding. Most pro players are athletes rather than jocks.
The athlete is intelligent, hard-working, and a decent human being. He has fallback plans for the future in case he can't play pro. The jock is arrogant, stupid, lazy, and a jerk. He has no plans for the future beyond high school whatsoever.
Jocks are drinking and messing around with cheerleaders while athletes are training, studying, or participating in worthwhile extracurriculars.
Next, here is the Athenian Oath, rewritten to fit the circumstances of an athlete at West Ranch High School:
We will never bring disgrace to this, our school by any act of dishonesty or cowardice, nor ever desert our suffering comrades in the ranks; we will fight for the ideal and sacred things of the school, both alone and with many; we will revere and obey the school's laws and do our best to incite a like respect in those above us who are prone to annul or set them at naught; we will strive unceasingly to quicken the student body's sense of school pride. Thus, in all these ways, we will transmit this school not only not less, but greater and more beautiful than it was transmitted to us.
Last, a brief paragraph on the Athenian Ideal as it pertained to sport:
The Athenians did not play sports just to keep fit, and they didn’t play sports to win glory for themselves or even for their cities. They felt that the development of the body and of the spirit went together. They also saw that the artistic and the athletic were expressions of one another. For example, to train in public speaking, they practiced the javelin throw (“taking hold” of a subject, having an “accurate delivery” in order to be “on target.”) while those who wanted to become better philosophers were encouraged to participate in wrestling (“grappling” with life’s questions). Sports was not intended to produce sportsmen or warriors, but to produce well rounded, harmonious human beings.
I hope I can instill these values in my athletes.
