Sport As Moral Teacher

San Francisco 49ers head coach Jim Harbaugh has taken to repeating Malcolm X’s slogan, “by any means necessary.” The other day his star linebacker, Patrick Willis, echoed it in a press conference, so the motto has obviously taken hold in the locker room. I imagine that if I still lived in San Francisco, I’d be hearing it from my friends.

That’s because sport is pedagogical as well as entertaining, even for onlookers. It teaches as it entertains us.