"Sport builds character" is a truism rarely questioned by Americans. Most parents encourage their children to take part in competitive athletics, and organized team sports are available to young people from the early years of grammar school through high school and college.

Occasionally some disturbing incidents cast doubt on the assumption that sport is necessarily beneficial to character development: a serious injury on the playing field due to gratuitous violence, for example, or drug use, gambling, or sexual misconduct. Whole communities have wondered how organized team sports, supposedly designed to build character, can lead to such drastic deviations from the imagined ideals.

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In Lessons of The Locker Room, anthropologist Andrew W. Miracle, Jr., and sociologist C. Roger Rees explore the fascinating underpinnings of school sports, as developed in England, then adopted in the United States. How did Americans become so obsessed with sports, and how did sports come to be so intimately connected with our schools?

They then examine the evidence to support the prevailing assumption that sport is an ennobling experience, and find that, in fact, participation has little effect upon the development of positive characteristics. Far from building model citizens, their research shows that competitive team sports may foster selfish motives and antisocial behavior. Rather than learning self-sacrifice, dedication, and hard work, athletes often pick up the tacit message that "winning isn't everything, it's the only thing," and that the end justifies the means.

The authors cite data to show that the lure of athletics in a school setting is sometimes at variance with educational goals: many athletes end up sacrificing opportunities for lasting self-improvement through education in the hope of achieving the short-lived glory of athletic success. Statistics prove that the majority of high school team players never become successful college or professional athletes; the hype surrounding sports is misleading, and the promise of success illusory.

1. Miracle and Rees contend that school sports organizers often deceive both their athletes and themselves. Coaches and athletic directors may speak of sport building character but its real function is to provide entertainment for the community. Having winning teams is much more important than having educated and well-adjusted athletes.

Miracle and Rees argue that our current sports obsession is on a collision course with the true needs of a society heading toward the twenty-first century. In the global marketplace, the American educational system needs to compete on more than just the playing field. Sports cannot dominate education, as it often does on the high school and college levels.

The authors believe individual educational goals should be complemented by athletic experiences, and desirable social ethics should be expressed through sports participation, instead of the "win-at-all-costs" mentality that pervades most of today's locker rooms. They make predictions about what sport will look like in the future if we can get beyond the myth that it builds character.

1. Chapters are devoted to outlining the nature and history of the myth of school sport; sport and school unity; evidence for the myth; school sport and delinquency; sport and the education pay-off; school sport and the community; school sport, education, and corporate needs; the future of school sport; and the evolution of the sport myth.