FROM THE editors May 17, 2004 Issue

Training ... not just trying

Another crowded sports season stretches ahead. It's rich, varied, and tantalizing, and will culminate in the crowning glory of the Summer Olympics in Athens in August.

A lot of people imagine they'd like to taste the exhilaration of victory at those stratospheric levels of competition, but the allure is offset by the non-sporting behavior all too often found there. And that highly emotional, even dishonest behavior you read about or see on TV simply mirrors what's happening on other fronts. The turmoil in the sportsworld—ranging from body-building steroids to million-dollar salary disputes, to fights among players on the field or ice rink, and even to altercations between parents and officials at Little League games—is not so much a sports challenge as a life challenge.

In the search for solutions, a Biblical approach is helpful: "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it" (Prov. 22:6). Children have an inherent attraction to loving their neighbors in the way that Jesus taught his followers to do. They can quite naturally and easily consider how they want to be treated by others. And it's more and more common these days for coaches and parents to convince junior teams that real victory lies not just in beating others fair and square but in overcoming self-imposed limitations and achieving personal bests.

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