Sports
Now that you have examined a number of texts that focus on sports, explore this topic yourself by synthesizing your own ideas and the readings. You might want to do additional research or use readings from other classes as you write.
He urged Americans to turn their backs on the soft, easy indoor life they had been leading and embrace the challenges of the twentieth century with a spirit of adventure and courage. He praised physical activity—sports, mountain climbing, exploring, and fighting if necessary—and strenuous endeavor of all kinds, including building an empire and making America a major moral force in the world. He criticized spectators and urged them to participate in sports rather than merely watch them. He also argued that you could lead a strenuous life by working politically to make your country a better place or by writing a book or a poem or by being a caring mother who raised good kids.
Dalton added that the subtitle has a direct connection to Roosevelt’s own life. That is, Roosevelt
followed his own advice and lived his own kind of rugged strenuous life. He threw himself completely into each new endeavor—wrestling, bronco busting, mountain climbing, chopping trees, or exploring a dangerous uncharted river. He also led a strenuous life of struggle by making a new man of himself again and again: he resisted illness and built a stronger body, he proved himself a true man by holding his own among western ranch hands and cowboys, he made himself a writer and reformer, and he made himself a leader and a political prophet without losing his sense of ethics.
Write about your own philosophy of life. In your essay, explain your thoughts on how to improve humankind, and examine the ways you have practiced what you preach.
I am always amazed when I hear people saying that sport creates goodwill between nations, and that if only the common peoples of the world could meet one another at football or cricket, they would have no inclination to meet on the battlefield. Even if one didn’t know from concrete examples (the 1936 Olympics, for instance) that international sporting contests lead to orgies of hatred, one could deduce it from general principles. . . . At the international level sport is frankly mimic warfare.
In an essay, agree or disagree with Orwell’s view of sports.