As a kid growing up outside of Baltimore, I believed the name Cal Ripken Jr. was sacrosanct. He was more than just a legend. He was one of us, and everything he did was for us. During his years playing shortstop for the Orioles, you always knew he would be there, throwing everything he had into every play. He only won one World Series, and it was before I was old enough to remember, but he was consistent and even relentless in his offering of himself for the team and the town he loved, and so we all loved him. When he broke Lou Gehrig’s record for consecutive games in 1995, it was more than just an athletic achievement. It was a tribute to the power of loyalty, humility, and self-sacrifice.
High-level sports, whether professional or college, are not usually thought of as platforms for pursuing virtue, particularly humility. But the appeal of sports is that they lead us to want to be the best possible versions of ourselves. To compete, great athletes must be dedicated and disciplined. Talent will only get you so far. True champions work hard, both physically and mentally, constantly pushing themselves to be the best they can be. This requires temperance. Athletes who cannot learn to control themselves tend to flame out quickly, even if they make it to the pros. The greatest athletes, though, have always recognized that more is required than even temperance to turn what they do on the court or the field into something truly beautiful and worth remembering. It requires love.
The HBO series Celtics City is a riveting nine-part documentary about one of the greatest and most enduring franchises in sports. The Boston Celtics have won 18 NBA championships, making them the team with the most titles in basketball history. The team’s legacy is marked by struggles and controversy, issues of racial discrimination, violence, and tragedy. Yet the team has consistently managed to rise above its worst moments, and self-sacrifice has been a major part of that, from legends like Bill Russell and Bob Cousy, all the way down to current stars like Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum.
When asked what makes these players great, journalists, fans, and even the players themselves all say it is a willingness to deny themselves for the sake of the team. Under Coach Doc Rivers, who led the team to a championship in 2008, the Celtics adopted the motto of ubuntu, the African concept that says, “I am because we are.” All offer themselves not just for themselves but for the good of the whole.
When I was young, this was what made sports compelling, and it is what made me loyal to my favorite athletes. It is what made me love Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, and Magic Johnson, none of whom played for my local team but all of whom understood that their stardom and success were wrapped up in how much they were willing to give of themselves for the sake of their teammates, their fans, and the cities they lived in. The same held true with great college teams. As a lifelong fan of the University of Florida Gators, I have a love for Steve Spurrier and Tim Tebow that seems woven into my DNA. This affection is not just because they were Heisman Trophy winners and champions but because watching them play made me feel like they were doing it for all of us.
There is great ambition in such players, a drive, even an arrogance, but it is tempered by a fierce loyalty to the fans and the place that nurtured them.
“There are no unsacred places,” says Wendell Berry. “There are only sacred places and desecrated places.” Sports contribute to the conservation of a place when they elevate the sense of common bonds and commitments. Loving the team I root for, or even a particular athlete whom I admire, is a way of grounding myself in a community. It is also a way of celebrating virtue, as the excellence of great players makes me want to reach for my own excellence in whatever way I can.
“Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect,” Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5:48). In some manifestations of Christianity, this calling of Jesus has been understood as a condemnation, a strict application of the law that is meant to convict and shame us when we are unable to meet its demands. But that reading misses something important in the human spirit that sports exemplify: We yearn for perfection. We long for it. It is true that we will not achieve it, at least on this side of the grave. Many things get in the way, including our sinful impulses to indulge in self-righteousness and self-deception.
Nevertheless, the drive itself comes from God and it is good, because the perfection we long for isn’t the cheap knockoff version offered by the world. It isn’t money or fame or power. It’s becoming more like Christ himself. We learn to get over ourselves and reach for something greater together, and we are willing to give up the whole of ourselves for the sake of our brothers and sisters, including those whose names we will never know.
Unfortunately, it is harder to find this kind of striving after virtue in modern sports than it once was. The massively disproportionate inflation of money in professional sports has made going to a game something only for the privileged elite rather than the masses. Superstars who are only interested in their own brand, along with management that treats players as commodities rather than people, have made loyal, local heroes like Ripken relics of the past. Likewise, the advent of name-image-likeness and the transfer portal have made college sports a much more self-interested and less virtuous venture. The idea of representing a place has likewise gotten lost as both professional and college athletes chase after the most lucrative opportunities, often playing for many different teams throughout their career based on where the money takes them.
The appeal of virtue still haunts sports, though, and occasionally it re-emerges in ways that are inspiring. A great example of this is the Olympics, in which competition is not only an opportunity for personal glory but a chance to celebrate one’s homeland. Fans find themselves engrossed in any number of sports they might not normally consider. Who knew that water polo and breakdancing could be so engrossing?
Each competition offers the chance to see athletes who have devoted themselves to being the best they can be, mentally and physically, who lay it all on the line for the sake of their country, the people they represent. Even Olympic competitions that include a lot of professional athletes have this quality to them. The U.S. Men’s Basketball team has been a dominant force in the Olympics since the 1990s because of the preponderance of NBA players, yet the games take on a different meaning in that context. Dream teams of superstars cannot win if they are just showboating. They must find ways of supporting one another, allowing their gifts to work together for the greater good.
Certainly, the picture I am painting is somewhat idealized. Sports can become problematic in many ways, especially when their importance is blown out of proportion. Just before Jesus calls us to be perfect, he tells us to love our enemies. Sports sometimes teach us the opposite lesson, if we allow ourselves to get too wrapped up in the desire to win. However, if we keep things in perspective, the competition that sports engender can be healthy. It pushes us to love where we are from more deeply, and to see within our small place in the world the possibility of reaching for greatness.
In an era in which so much of our lives has been taken over by automation and algorithms, sports remain an unabashedly human pursuit. Therefore, sports have a tremendous potential to help us reclaim our humanity through a striving after excellence that can only come through self-sacrifice. For this reason, sports at their best can be an engine of evangelization, pushing us to search for how to become more perfect versions of ourselves, a search that ultimately leads to God.
Fr. Jonathan Mitchican is the chaplain and Theology Department Chair at St. John XXIII College Preparatory in Katy, Texas.
