What is sport ethic?
According to Hughes and Coakley "The sport ethic refers to what many participants in sport have come to use as the criteria for defining what it means to be a real athlete". There are also 4 dimensions to the sport ethic including the following.
Dimensions of Sports Ethic:
- Making sacrifices for 'the game'
- Striving for distinction
- Accepting risks and playing through pain
- Not accepting limits in the pursuit of possibilities
The dimensions create a positive deviance and one of the reasons athletes conform to this set of beliefs is because of the socialization process which leads us to believe the 4 dimensions are what defines us.
I have experienced all four of the dimensions when playing competitively for sports. For example coming in to the gym my freshman year at 5 in the morning every day during the season just to strive for that distinction and not accept limits. I even went to those early morning practices when I had the flu accepting the fact that I would throw up after. The time I lost a contact lens during a golf tournament and kept playing half blind was also an example of not accepting limits and taking it as a sacrifice for the sake of trying to win the game.
References:
Hughes and Coakley (1991)
Where did you learn about the Sport Ethic? For example, did your coaches and/or teammates know you were playing sick or without a contact lens and then encourage you to continue...or did you just KNOW you had to? - Prof Withycombe
ReplyDeleteSport Ethic was something I learned through a large combination of movies, watching games, coaches, and teammates. In our society it seems to be a trend to "play through pain" for example Tiger Woods in the 2008 US Open had arthroscopic surgery 2 months before the tournament and still won (while hobbling around). - Brandon Fukutome
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