Differences Between Athletic Virtues & Athletic Values

Merriam-Webster's Dictionary defines value as something of "relative worth, utility, or importance." It defines virtue as "conformity to a standard of right" or "a particular moral excellence." Virtue can be seen as the quality of accepting and living the values of your culture. In sports, where many athletes are not virtuous yet values are the essence of the games they play, knowing the distinction between athletic value and athletic virtue is tantamount.

  1. Theory vs. Practice

    • Athletes are taught the importance of sports values such as honesty, sportsmanship, integrity, respect and humility from the time they first begin playing. The focus of most youth sports organizations are to instill these basic athletic values into young people to make them virtuous in these areas on and off the playing field, ideally. Values are the abstract concepts; virtues are the values ingrained and made personal. Selflessness is the value, helping the team by passing the puck to a player who is a better scorer is a virtue.

    On the Field

    • All sports teams share common values, but this does not mean all athletes who play for these teams do. While a baseball manager drills the game's values such as teamwork and hard work into his players, individual players who do not hold these values as personal virtues may still play selfishly or not give their all on every play. This was seen in 1991 when Pittsburgh Pirates manager Jim Leyland benched reigning MVP Barry Bonds not because of Bonds' performance, but because of his poor attitude.

    Off the Field

    • The difference between athletic virtues and values is perhaps best seen in the debate over whether athletes should be role models off the field. The controversy is over whether athletes who play games that value certain attitudes should be responsible for holding them as personal virtues. For example, when LeBron James went to the Miami Heat, many Cleveland Cavaliers fans felt betrayed since they expected him to uphold the basketball value of team loyalty as a personal virtue.

    Talent

    • Living the values of your game with more than talent that makes a player loved by fans. Neither Barry Bonds nor Cal Ripken Jr., two of the most talented baseball players in major league history, would deny integrity is a value of baseball. Yet of the two, only Ripken accepted these values as personal virtues. As a result, while Ripken is beloved by players, fans and the media alike, Bonds was reviled outside San Francisco even before the steroid scandal broke out.