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In order not to break up the text unnecessarily, we have avoided the mechanisms of scholarly citation as much as possible. We have, however, depended heavily on certain sources, in some cases directly quoting and in others not, so it is appropriate to give credit where credit is due. 
Secondly, we would like to give some indication of the background that informsthisbook.Theconcisenessandclaritywe’veachievedinarticulating theprinciplesofsportsmanshipderiveinpartfromourexperienceascoaches and athletes, but in large part from our philosophical backgrounds. Some of these sources we refer to explicitly in the text of our book, and others are listed here because they have informed our thinking in a significant way. 
Finally, in the event that someone might want to pursue some of these topics in a more scholarly fashion, we wanted to use this opportunity to suggest additional readings. 
For these reasons our list of bibliographical entries is preceded by a short bibliographical essay explaining the most significant sources that have informed our thinking on the subject of sportsmanship. We will first say a few words about some of the more significant influences on our thinking; then we’ll provide a more complete list of relevant readings and sources. 
Our view of sport as a form of play has been influenced by various writers. Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play Element in Culture by Johan Huizinga is perhaps the seminal study of play and its relation to various expressions of human culture—language, law, war, poetry, and so on. The first chapter contains an important analysis of the concept of play. Kenneth Schmitz’s “Sport and Play: Suspension of the Ordinary” is one of the most concise applicationsofHuizinga’sconceptofplaytothearenaofsport,andourtreatment of the nature of sport in chapter 2 follows his thinking very closely. 
In Truthand Method,thegreatGermanphilosopherHans-GeorgGadamer puts forward the view that art is a form of play. Although he only briefly discusses sport and games, his account helps to clarify the way in which both art and sport are forms of a fundamental aspect of being human, perhaps even a fundamental aspect of nature. We touch briefly on this broader approach to the concept of play in chapter 8. 
For obvious reasons, our emphasis on achieving a balance between playfulness and seriousness in sport and sportsmanship closely follows Randolph Feezell’s essays “Play and the Absurd” and “Sportsmanship.” 
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Craig Clifford’s “Coach” treats many of the ideas that we’ve developed here in the form of a dialogue, and, for obvious reasons, our “Coach Skeptical” device was modeled on some of the passages in this dialogue. 
Our view of competition has been strongly influenced by Drew Hyland’s account in his article “Competition and Friendship” and in chapter 2 of his book, Philosophy of Sport. The idea that competition is a “mutual striving for excellence” we take from Hyland. 
AnothergreatGermanphilosopher,MartinHeidegger(Gadamer’steacher), has been a significant influence. His book Being and Time contains one of the most profound reflections on the nature of human existence in the history of philosophy. In particular, our emphasis on understanding human finitude derives in large part from Heidegger’s thought. His understanding of human “authenticity” in terms of seeing one’s true possibilities is particularly pertinent. Iris Murdoch’s essay “The Sovereignty of Good Over Other Concepts” parallels Heidegger’s call for a truthful coming to terms with our own finitude. Murdoch connects the development of virtue, or moral excellence, with coming to see the world as it is; that is, she relates the possibility of making ourselves better with a kind of truthful vision of the world, what she calls attaining a “just mode of vision.” She also interprets humility in terms of “seeing the way things are.” This concept is crucial to our understanding of sportsmanship, and we make reference to it throughout the book. 
Our treatment of virtue as excellence of character is, of course, indebted to the classical Greek tradition of moral philosophy, expressed most profoundly in many of Plato’s dialogues and in Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics. The role of good judgment (phronesis) in relation to the development of good character is famously emphasized by Aristotle in Book VI of his Ethics. Randolph Feezell’s “Sport, Character, and Virtue” shows the way in which various virtues might be developed through participation in sports. Feezell’s essay and, in general, our understanding of the relation between virtue and sport are heavily influenced by Alasdair MacIntyre’s widely discussed book, After Virtue. This important work in moral philosophy first situates the virtues in the context of what MacIntyre calls “practices.” One distinguishing characteristic of a practice, according to MacIntyre, is that it is a human activity that involves standards of excellence. You can do it well or poorly. Baseball or football or any sport would be a practice; so would playing the violin. MacIntyre distinguishes the internal goods of a practice (in baseball that would include hitting a good line drive) from the external goods that participation in a practice may bring about (fame and fortune, for example). He emphasizes that the internal goods are in some sense shared by participants in the practice (hitting a forehand with more topspin after seeing Bjorn Borg play), unlike the external goods that are in principle scarce (fame and fortune). 
Also, our emphasis on the historical nature of sport follows MacIntyre’s 
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emphasis on the way practices are constituted by their traditions. A more in-depth account of our thinking about the importance of custom and tradition for understanding the issue of cheating in sports is found in Randolph Feezell’s “On the Wrongness of Cheating and Why Cheaters Can’t Play the Game.” In this essay, cheating is understood as taking an unfair advantage of an opponent. It might involve violating explicit rules, but it might also be a matter of failing to respect the customs and traditions that all participants of the game have implicitly agreed to abide by. 
Our view of the function of rules and the role of officials is, not surprisingly, described in the familiar language of Thomas Hobbes. In chapter XIII of Leviathan, Hobbes describes a hypothetical situation, which he calls the “state of war,” in which people live prior to the development of moral constraints. We’ve found his description of the state of war helpful in trying to understand what sports would become after the dissolution of moral constraints—assuming, for the purposes of argument, that that has not already occurred. 
In chapter 6 of The Culture of Narcissism, Christopher Lasch provides an interesting commentary on the “Degradation of Sport” and the trivialization of sport and athletics in contemporary culture. He speaks of sport as “splendid futility.” Since he emphasizes the playful character of sport, he might well have agreed with our characterization of sport as “splendid triviality.” 
Finally, our comments on wisdom and truisms have been influenced by Stanley Godlovitch’s essay, “On Wisdom.” 
Aristotle. Nichomachean Ethics. Translated by Martin Ostwald. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill (Library of Liberal Arts), 1962. Bennett, William J. The Book of Virtues: A Treasury of Great Moral Stories. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993. Bradley, Bill. Life on the Run. New York: Vintage Books, 1976. Clifford, Craig. “Coach.” The Tenure of Phil Wisdom: Dialogues. University Press of American, 1995. Clifford,Craig.“Temper-Tantruming:TheImmoralImplicationsofTennis.” FortWorth Star-Telegram, 22 July 1985 (also appeared in Baltimore Sun, 11 August 1985). 
Clifford, Craig. “Whatever the Goal in Life or Sports, Winning Is More Than Highest Score.” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 3 April 1988 (also appeared in San Diego Tribune, 8 April 1988). 
Feezell, Randolph. “On the Wrongness of Cheating and Why Cheaters Can’t Play the Game.” Journal of the Philosophy of Sport 15 (January 1988). Feezell, Randolph. “Play and the Absurd.” Philosophy Today 28, no. 4 (winter 1984). Feezell, Randolph. “Play, Freedom, and Sport.” Philosophy Today 25, no. 2 (summer 1981). Feezell, Randolph. “Sport, Character, and Virtue.” Philosophy Today 33, no. 3 (fall 1989). Feezell, Randolph. “Sportsmanship.” Journal of the Philosophy of Sport 13 (1986). 
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Feezell, Randolph, and Curtis L. Hancock. How Should I Live? Philosophical Conversations about Moral Life. New York: Paragon House, 1991. 
Ford, Gerald. “In Defense of the Competitive Urge.” Sport Inside Out: Readings in LiteratureandPhilosophy.EditedbyDavidL.VanderwerdenandSpencerK.Wertz. Fort Worth: Texas Christian University Press, 1985. 
Gadamer,Hans-Georg. TruthandMethod.TranslatedbyJoelWeinsheimerandDonald 
G. Marshall. New York: Continuum, 1993. Godlovitch, Stanley. “On Wisdom.” Canadian Journal of Philosophy (March 1981). Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time. Translated by John Macquarrie and Edward 
Robinson. New York: Harper and Row, 1962. 
Heinegg,Peter.“PhilosopherinthePlayground:NotesontheMeaningofSport.”Sport InsideOut:Readingsin Literatureand Philosophy.Edited byDavidL. Vanderwerden and Spencer K. Wertz. Fort Worth: Texas Christian University Press, 1985. 
Herrigel, Eugen. Zen in the Art of Archery. Translated by R.R.C. Hull. New York: Vintage Books, 1971. 
Hobbes, Thomas. Leviathan. Selections in Classics of Western Philosophy, 4th edition. Edited by Steven M. Cahn. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co., 1995. 
Huizinga, Johan. Homo Ludens: AStudy of the Play-Element in Culture. Boston: Beacon Press, 1950. 
Hyland, Drew A. “Competition and Friendship,” Journal of the Philosophy of Sport 
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Hyland, Drew A. Philosophy of Sport. New York: Paragon House, 1990. 
Jackson, Phil. Sacred Hoops. New York: Hyperion, 1995. 
Kant, Immanuel. Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals. Translated by James El
lington. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1981. Lasch, Christopher. The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminished Expectations. New York: Warner Books, 1979. Lipsyte, Robert. “The Emasculation of American Sports.” The New York Times Magazine (April 2, 1995). MacIntyre, Alasdair. After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981. Maclean, Norman. A River Runs Through It and Other Stories. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976. Morgan, William J., and Klaus V. Meier. Philosophic Inquiry in Sport. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics, 1988. Murdoch, Iris. “The Sovereignty of Good Over Other Concepts.” The Sovereignty of Good. New York: Schocken Books, 1971. Plato. The Collected Works of Plato. Edited by Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961. Plato. The Gorgias. Translated by W.C. Helmbold. Indianapolis: Library of Liberal Arts (Bobbs-Merrill), 1952. Plato. The Republic. Translated by Benjamin Jowett. New York: Vintage Books, 1991. Roberts, Randy, and James S. Olson. Winning Is the Only Thing: Sports in America Since 1945. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989. Schmitz, Kenneth. “Sport and Play: Suspension of the Ordinary.” Philosophic Inquiry