Sport As A Form Of Human Fulfillment

Sport has been among the most enduring forms of human endeavor. This organic interpretation of its nature and development argues that sport inherently serves the most engaging of purposes, authentically human fulfillment itself.

I am not against sport and related physical activity. What I am arguing is that, employed properly and correctly, exercise and sport–as one of a number of vital social forces (e.g., nationalism, ecology)–could contribute to the improvement of the current situation in human health enormously. Additionally, in the case of related physical activity (i.e., regular exercise or “physical activity education”) in the developed world, I believe humans are too often “abusing it by first not understanding it, and then by not using it more intelligently”! (Ironically, in the “undeveloped world,” people often get too much “exercise” just to stay alive!) Moreover, I believe that the active use of competitive sport worldwide to promote what have been called moral values, traits or attributes leading to world peace and good will, as opposed to so-called socio-instrumental values that often are overly self-serving. This would tend to create a social force of such strength and power that humankind might be helped as it confronts the social and physical devastation looming ahead. At the very least, I believe such active promotion would delay to a considerable degree the onset of what is increasingly becoming a destructive societal situation.)

In the The BigThrees Takeover of Sport, Dr. Zeigler argues that such a take-over of competitive sport by capitalism, nationalism, and democracy has become a very serious problem that gradually became a crisis as the twentieth century wore on. The main purpose of this bookto show that the commandeering, or take-over, of sport by the conglomerate of three, enumeratedhas created a situation where competitive sport has been increasingly degraded to a destructive professional morality espousing a mentality that screams: Winning is now not the most important thing in sport; it is the only thing! If indeed such is the case, this means that we must move now to assess the evolving situation more carefully than ever before

This book offers an accessible overview of the role sport plays in international relations and diplomacy. Sports diplomacy has previously been defined as an old but under-studied aspect of the estranged relations between peoples, nations and states. These days, it is better understood as the conscious, strategic and ongoing use of sport, sportspeople and sporting events by state and non-state actors to advance policy, trade, development, education, image, reputation, brand, and people-to-people links. In order to better understand the many occasions where sport and diplomacy overlap, this book presents four new, inter-disciplinary and theoretical categories of sports diplomacy: traditional, ‘new’, sport-as-diplomacy, and sports anti-diplomacy. These categories are further validated by a large number of case studies, ranging from the Ancient Olympiad to the recent appearance of esoteric, government sports diplomacy strategies, and beyond, to the activities of non-state sporting actors such as F.C. Barcelona, Colin Kaepernick and the digital world of e-sports. As a result, the landscape of sports diplomacy becomes clearer, as do the pitfalls and limitations of using sport as a diplomatic tool. This book will be of much interest to students of diplomacy, foreign policy, sports studies, and International Relations in general.

This book is designed to inform the general public, as well as the person interested professionally, to understand how sport and related physical activity have been "used and abused" by humans throughout history.

"Sporting with the Gods examines the rhetoric of "game" and "play" and "sport" in American culture from the time of the Puritans to the 1980s. Focusing on writers and public figures who dominated public discourse, Oriard shows how the trope of game and play in fiction and in religious, social, and economic writings can be used to graph changes in the religious and social climate from the Puritans through the Transcendentalists to the Social Darwinists and from the Beats and hippies to the New Age spiritualists of the present decade. He also uses the trope to graph the shifting attitudes toward work (and play) in the game of business, as the United States moved to industrial capitalism and then to a postindustrial society of consumerism and leisure. The result is a history of this country from its inception, through the lens of a single trope, resonating with implications at every strata of American culture." --from back cover.

In this era of sedentary lifestyles and disruption, sports science can propose solutions to human health matters. There is no doubt about the positive impact of sports on the physical as well as mental health of an individual, by extrapolation to the society at large. But with the advent of the latest technologies in the sports domain, the body of knowledge about sports science and human health is reaching new heights. The “Sports Science and Human Health - Different Approaches” book aims to expose worldwide research and development works in an explicit manner. Readers will appreciate the diversity of the topics, ranging from the use of machine learning in sports science to the psychological impact of sports and sports for peace initiatives. A large section is dedicated to wearable devices like biomechanical devices to gauge motor skills, and other smart devices to assess player performance. Beyond awareness, the multidisciplinary nature of this book is a source of inspiration for the scientific community.

This collection of articles is written by psychologists and pedagogues from two countries: the contributors from Norway work in the field of sport science at the Finnmark University College in Alta, while those from Poland are psychologists, pedagogues, and sociologists conducting their research in varied fields at the Pomeranian University in Slupsk. The common feature is that all of these scholars are interested in the same field of research: motivation. Therefore, this book examines the issue of motivation from various angles and different approaches. At the same time, the articles also provide insight into the similarities and differences that are specific to given countries. (Series: Psychologie - Vol. 52)