ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how sport helps socialize athletes into accepting violence, risk of injury, and pain. Using Erving Goffman's notion of a total institution, the chapter explains that children are socialized into sport from early youth, and that they are taught the socio-positive myths about sport in the process. This helps produce such a strong notion that sport is good, that it prevents non-athletes from critically examining the negatives of sport. The chapter discusses the structural mechanisms that help reproduce the socio-negative aspects of sport. This is largely because those athletes who best emulate the sporting creed, over-conforming to taxing norms, are those who are likely to be selected for the next round of competition. If people want to teach children the value of work, and how to get along with one's workmates, then it seems small doses of working are more appropriate than team sport.
