Why Character Matters in Sports

At the 2016 Olympic Games, a collision occurred in the 5,000-meter women’s track final. In the wake of athletes colliding, New Zealand runner Nikki Hamblin lay flat on the track. She was startled when American runner, Abbey D’Agostino, extended a hand and helped her to her feet.[1] The two women, both injured, encouraged one another and worked their way to the finish together.

Having occurred on the biggest stage in sports, this was a moment of sportsmanship the whole world talked about. The two women were lauded as capturing the Olympic spirit,[2] and both were awarded the International Fair Play Committee Award for their high character and sportsmanship.[3]

Character and Sports

Moral character is integrally tied to sports. We praise an athlete’s virtue, alongside physical abilities. For example, we might laud a runner’s patience and closing speed, or a football player’s courage and brawn. We also speak of the formative role athletics can play in the development of our character—of the discipline it might develop. And we praise sportsmanship wherever we see it. We celebrate sportsmanship as capturing the spirit of sport, indicating that there is a normative dimension to athletics. There are good ways and bad ways to occupy sport.

We might wonder, in more precise terms, about the nature of this connection between character and athletics. Why does character matter in sports? There are a few reasons.

(1) Character is required to maintain the integrity of the game.

In 2000, American sprinter and long jumper, Marion Jones won three gold and two bronze medals in the Sydney Olympic Games. At her peak, she was among the greatest athletes on the planet. However, suspicions arose when her husband (a shot putter) tested positive for steroids.[4] Seven years later, she admitted to having done the same.[5]

This was a sad day for Jones’s fans and supporters, who were disappointed and made to feel naïve. Moving forward, it is unlikely that they will experience the same uncritical wonder or delight in encountering an excellent person. But the greatest disappointment was felt by Jones’s competitors, who lost both opportunities to shine and the financial security that comes from succeeding on the biggest stage. The events were fixed in favor of Jones, and the terms of success in their sport were subverted. These athletes can never get those moments back.

One reason for the integral connection between athletics and character is that a high degree of integrity is required to maintain the terms of a sport. When vices abound, the game itself ceases to be fair, and the athlete's dignity is no longer on display.

(2) Character matters outside of sports, and sports form our character.

When you ask people why they participate in athletics, they often say something about its transformational nature. They say that regular practice in biking, tennis, or walking will help them become better—more disciplined, healthier, or more patient. This transformative nature of athletics—that we enter in, expecting to be changed for the better—is another major reason why character matters in sports.

When you submit yourself to the objectives of a sport—becoming a more competent swimmer, for example—you change physically. But you also change in terms of your affections, your ability to self-govern, and your habits of attention. Character matters in sports because we change through sport. If we care about the kinds of people we are in general, it is important to examine whether we are being formed constructively. This is not always a given. If our pacing is imprudent, our emotions fickle, or our decisions uncourageous, we may be practicing being the kinds of people we do not want to be for the rest of our lives.

(3) Character is relevant to how we perform.

At the 2024 Super Bowl LVIII, featuring the San Francisco 49ers and the Kansas City Chiefs, the Chiefs—led by quarterback Patrick Mahomes—came away with their third victory in five years. The televised broadcast detailed the action on the field, in terms of strategy, yards gained, and ball movement. It also praised the players’ virtues—their patience, perseverance, and courage. Character matters, even for performance reasons.[6]

Sport and Competition Essential Reads

What Being an Elite Athlete Taught Me About Life

Functional Imagery Training for Athletic Consistency

It would be naïve to think that character is all that matters in sport. Relevant variables also include physical training, body size, strength, and good fortune. But all other variables held constant, a courageous football player will outperform one absent this trait. This is because he will experience a suitable fear of risk, which is relevant to successfully pressing the ball down the field. A patient curler will release a stone across the ice at the right moment, rather than too soon. A perseverant runner will be better positioned to endure in a distance competition than an irresolute runner. Virtues impact how we occupy the sport.

Of course, vices do as well. Envy informs how we relate to competitors, how we cope with loss, and whether we will a teammate’s good. Pride dictates whether we are correct about the limits of our capacities and how superior we feel to others. Intransigence informs whether we can stop when we ought, rather stubbornly persisting through injury or fatigue.

The point is that athletics is not a morally neutral space. The character we have will reveal itself in how we train and the ways we perform.

(4) It is not just what we do that matters but how we do it.

Imagine a wealthy donor giving a large sum of money to fund a children’s hospital. We might think this person is generous. Now imagine that we later discover this person gave money to satisfy his narcissism. He is trying to get his name on as many buildings as possible to garner praise. We would likely still be grateful for the donation, insofar as it helps children, but we would cease to think of this donor as having the virtue of generosity. This is because a common intuition of virtue is that part of what makes an action praiseworthy is the motivation by which we do good actions.[7] This is also true in sports.

Character matters because how we do things changes the nature of what we do. In sports, we often take an interest in the personal lives of the greatest athletes. We love telling stories about players taking hits for the sake of the team, and for competing for higher purposes than their own glory. We also praise sportsmanship like that of D’Agostino and Hamblin, as capturing the true meaning of sport.

Final Thoughts

Sports are not a morally neutral space. In part, character matters in athletics because a high level of integrity is required to maintain the terms of the games themselves, but character’s greater relevance is in the transformative role athletics plays in our lives. We are shaped by athletic practice, and character is implicated in how we perform. Indeed, part of what we love to praise in athletics is virtue—great feats of courage, patience, and perseverance.