Randolph Feezell's True Competition

David Shields, an associate professor in the College of Education at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, and Brenda Bredemeier, an associate professor at the University of Missouri at St. Louis and a certified sports psychology consultant, give an analysis of competition in their book True Competition. Randolph Feezell, a philosophy professor at Creighton University, gives an analysis of sportsmanship. Even though Shields, Bredemeier, and Feezell are discussing different topics, their views are to a degree similar. While Shields and Bredemeier explain that a competitor can have a desire to win and appreciate the contest, Feezell claims that sportsmanship can be both playful and serious.
Shields and Bredemeier (2009) write, “A person can have a great desire to win simultaneously with a deep …show more content…
Shields and Bredemeier insist that athletes need to have a desire to win, but also respect their opponent and the game. They believe that athletes need to a desire to win and a great appreciation for the game. Shields and Bredemeier argue that to be true competitor one needs to pursue victory but also respect the game and its’ rules. Feezell claims that athletes need to find a happy medium between seriousness and non-seriousness. Feezell (1986) states, “Sportsmanship is a mean between excessive seriousness, which misunderstands the importance of the play-spirit, and an excessive sense of playfulness, which might be called frivolity and which misunderstands the importance of victory and achievement when play is competitive.” (pg. 10) This means that athletes need to find what Feezell calls the virtue of sportsmanship. Feezell also agrees that a desire to win is essential in sports, but he insists that one cannot exaggerate the value of winning. All authors agree that in sports an athlete needs to find a golden mean to be a true competitor with