In yesterday's Times Matthew Syed takes aim at the notion that sport is good for human character. 'There is just no evidence', he says (£), 'to suggest that those who play sport regularly are more virtuous, characterful, happy, law-abiding, punctual or disciplined than those who don't.' So what? It's obvious, given how many people play and/or take an interest in sport, that displayed amongst them will be pretty well the full range of individual character, as of virtue and its opposites. There are at least two reasons for expecting this. One is that sports are played by human beings and human beings are a downright intricate mixture of good and bad qualities. There's practically no field of endeavour in which you won't encounter the different elements of that mixture. Second, there's no impregnable line between the world of sport and the world at large, and the influences between the one and the other are bound to go both ways. If the surrounding culture has ugly features, then so too will the sporting ethos influenced by it. 'Bad sportsmanship', as it is called, can be seen somewhere or other virtually any day of the week.
A claim for the possibly beneficial influences of sport must therefore be modest indeed. But such influences are real for all that. This is just a matter of common observation. In team sports there's such a thing as being an unselfish player and bending one's efforts towards collective ends even when this means not doing the best one could for oneself. It is highly implausible to suggest that this would never have good educative efforts, for both the players concerned and those watching them. Associated with team and individual sports there are codes about winning and losing gracefully, and not behaving towards opponents in a mean-spirited way. These are often disregarded or breached, but they are not nothing and their effects are visible both on the field of play and amongst spectators. In addition, people's lives are enhanced by taking part in or witnessing displays of great talent and drama and beauty. It is, once more, utterly implausible to think that such activities are either harmful or morally neutral in their effects.
