ABSTRACT
Sport has long been considered a tool for social change. In fact, Coubertin drew on classic Western traditions to envision the modern Olympics as a tool for peace and understanding. Coubertin’s vision for the Olympic Games is also grounded in the values evident in the British Public Schools during 1800s, that sport competitions are a way to build character (MacAloon, 1981). By the late nineteenth century, it was believed that sport changed boys into civilized gentlemen embodying the ideals of unselfishness, fearlessness, teamwork, and self-control. Coubertin also felt sport to be a vehicle for social and personal change. For him, sport served three objectives: (1) to develop aesthetic appreciation through participants’ experience of the body during sport; (2) to use international sport as a tool with which to establish peace and cross-national understanding; and (3) to teach participants to strive for and to respect excellence wherever it occurred (Chalip, 1992). The idea that sport can act as an agent for social and personal change has been with us for centuries and is still salient today.
