Christians and College Athletics

If you’re an incoming freshman, transfer student, or graduate student–welcome!

I just ran across an interesting article talking about the relationship between Christians and college sports, a relationship which can be summed up in the phrase [Recent scandals] may lead the faithful to ask a new question: Should a Christian student think twice before getting involved in high-profile college sports like basketball or football? What kind of values will he or she learn in that setting?

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, this question would have been unthinkable. Why? Because college sports was imbued with an ideal called “muscular Christianity.”

This was the belief that physical activity and sports, especially team sports, developed character, fostered patriotism, and instilled virtues that would serve their participantsand their participants’ Godwell in later life. In other words, team games taught their own high ethic, and that ethic could and should be a Christian one.

Read the whole thing and learn about the origins of the YMCA, basketball and the Olympics.