How Did Ancient Greeks Develop Character

How Ancient Greeks Developed Character through Sports?

Origin of the Games: The Ancient Greeks were the pioneers in realising the importance of sports to promote and develop the character of human beings. A huge number of sports competitions were organised to portray the importance of taking part in sports events. It was in that time only that Olympic Games originated in Greece.

To make the best out of these competitions, the participating countries/cities were represented by their best athletes. On the occasion of an athlete winning, he received warm accolades from the crowd on arrival. He was also awarded with a crown made of leaves which was a sign of honour and recognition. Moreover, a statue and poems were also dedicated to him as a

It is commonly acknowledged that playing sports goes a long way in developing a positive attitude as well as teamwork. Taking the above advantages into account, sports as a teaching medium has grown in popularity, particularly the foreign universities. However, there have been several researches contesting the benefits of sports as a teaching methodology.

Based on the research conducted, sports outshine other teaching methods such as reading, writing, and role playing because it is unplanned, real and spontaneous. Majority of the sports has the intrinsic value of being fun, the extrinsic value of being competitive, and the systemic value of being fair or abided by the rules and regulations. Moreover, Sport helps us to develop ethics and provides a logical connection to morality, particularly the young participants.

It has been widely recognized that some qualities such as teamwork, respect and coordination are developed more through team sports rather than individual sports. This is due to the fact that there is more interaction within a team which provides us view-points and of various

One of the most important assumptions while concluding that sports builds character was that the participants will always abide by the rules and uphold the spirit of the game. If strong ethics are followed in the game, athletes will develop various character traits through sports. However, this assumption is where the things go a little wrong. A freedom of choice comes into play and there are numerous examples where athletes without any ethics and some even go on to winning.

It is because of the above mentioned points that another conclusion was drawn about sports; Rather than building character, sports helps to reveal the true character of a person. Moreover, ‘winning at all costs’ attitude has made things even worse in this scenario. Hence, a conscious, determined and an intentional effort is required by the athletes as well as their close ones to make them realise this. Hence, I would like to conclude this by saying:

Character building is not something you assume will happen; it is something everyone works toward making happen

Following are the examples where some sportspersons have used unfair means:

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