Socrates special selection - No. 1. After churning out stories, thoughts, and philosophies from the weird and wild world of sport I thought it was time to dig out some of my favourites. If I were to create a top ten from Sportsocratic, this would be in there somewhere. Not because it's a brilliant piece of writing. I'm a philosopher...not a writer. I've, most likely, never … [Read more...]
Team Names on Sports Uniforms? Why?
Socrates has been playing and watching sport for decades and one of the (many) things that has mystified and annoyed him from a young age is the way that some teams, (usually basketball teams), emblazon their uniforms with their team name in text. He doesn't get it. And he worries about where this tradition might be heading! When I was a young pup playing hooker for the … [Read more...]
So Easy To Make Hasty Judgements – Angel Reese vs Catilin Clark
How easy is it to be racist? Maybe it’s easier than you think! This is going back a few months, but my hasty judginess still stings. The first indication I had that the 2022-2023 NCAA Women’s basketball season had concluded, was a video-clip on Twitter showing LSU player Angel Reese mocking Iowa star player Caitlin Clark with a series of hand gestures at the conclusion … [Read more...]
Greatest cheats ever Contender No. 2 – 2000 Paralympic Spanish Intellectually Disabled Basketball Team
Who were the greatest… most egregious… most vile… most talented cheaters in the history of sport? Socrates announces his list of favourites. Number two, but only by a whisker, is the Sydney 2000 Paralympics Spanish Intellectually Disabled Basketball team. When it comes to singling out the world’s worst cheat one would think that Emperor Nero, discussed in our first … [Read more...]
The stoic approach to a game gone wrong – Sports tips from Seneca
Ancient philosopher, Seneca, was not much of an athlete. But he knew quite a bit about what it was like to have a bad day. His tips on how to deal with getting the rough end of the pineapple in a sporting context are well worth hearing. One might imagine that wealthy, famous and highly respected philosophers… people who have held high status roles in government and in business… … [Read more...]