Does it take a bad person to be a good athlete?
Why Read This
What Makes This Article Worth Your Time
Summary
What This Article Is About
Sabrina Little, an elite runner and philosophy professor at Christopher Newport University, examines whether certain character defects actually enhance athletic performance. Drawing from her own experience returning to competition after motherhood—and losing the selfishness that previously fueled her success—she introduces the concept of performance-enhancing vices: traits like pride, envy, and intransigence that make athletes more competitive while undermining flourishing life outside sport.
Through examples ranging from Tonya Harding’s assault on Nancy Kerrigan to Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen’s bitter rivalry, Little demonstrates how vices can be strategically advantageous in competition. Yet she argues these same traits exact personal costs—damaged relationships, unsustainable physical practices, and diminished capacity for self-governance—forcing athletes to confront whether performance gains justify the tradeoffs to their character and communities.
Key Points
Main Takeaways
Performance-Enhancing Vices Exist
Character defects like selfishness, pride, envy, and intransigence can make athletes more competitive while undermining their flourishing as complete human beings.
Selfishness Optimizes for Performance
The author’s personal experience reveals how selfishness narrows focus and maximizes ambition, but returning to competition as a mother demonstrated its performance cost.
Pride Motivates Through Reputation
While pride’s epistemic error hinders performance, its error of valuing—believing oneself superior—creates powerful motivation to protect reputation and prove greatness.
Intransigence Reaches More Finishes
The stubborn refusal to quit—exemplified by Mount Everest climbers and injured athletes—leads to more completed objectives but compromises physical limits and higher allegiances.
Envy Transforms Rivals into Foes
Competitive envy—seen in Jordan-Pippen and Harding-Kerrigan rivalries—drives athletes to fight harder by making loss terrifying and competitors into enemies to defeat.
Character Formation Has Costs
Sports shape character through daily practice, but vices cultivated for performance exact personal, communal, and institutional costs that extend beyond the athletic arena.
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Article Analysis
Breaking Down the Elements
Main Idea
The Paradox of Athletic Excellence
Little argues that certain character defects—pride, envy, selfishness, and intransigence—can enhance athletic performance while simultaneously undermining human flourishing. This creates a moral tension athletes must navigate: whether performance gains justify compromising virtuous character development that serves life beyond sport.
Purpose
To Challenge Unexamined Athletic Values
Little aims to provoke critical reflection among athletes and sports culture about the moral costs of competitive success. She calls readers to examine which character bargains they’re willing to make, challenging the assumption that athletic achievement justifies any means of attainment.
Structure
Personal Narrative → Philosophical Analysis → Case Studies
The essay begins with Little’s post-drug-test reflection and personal transformation through motherhood, transitions to conceptual framework defining performance-enhancing vices, then examines specific vices (pride, intransigence, envy) through historical examples, concluding with broader implications for character formation.
Tone
Reflective, Scholarly & Self-Examining
Little balances philosophical rigor with personal vulnerability, using her own experiences with selfishness to authenticate broader arguments. The tone is analytical yet accessible, critically examining sports culture while maintaining respect for athletic achievement and acknowledging the complexity of these ethical dilemmas.
Key Terms
Vocabulary from the Article
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Tough Words
Challenging Vocabulary
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The vice of persevering excessively or toward inappropriate ends; refusing to abandon a course of action despite good reasons to stop.
“This ‘never surrender’ mindset is called intransigence, or pertinacity. It is the vice of excess with respect to remaining in place.”
Excessive pride or an inflated sense of one’s own importance; inordinate desire for excellence and feelings of superiority over others.
“If you spend much time around sports, you will have experienced the vice of pride, or superbia. It is an inordinate desire for one’s own excellence.”
Relating to knowledge, cognition, or the nature and scope of knowing; concerning how we acquire, validate, and assess information.
“Pride commits two errors. The first is an epistemic (knowledge) error. The proud sportsperson perceives themself to be more capable than they actually are.”
Stubborn persistence; holding firmly to a purpose, belief, or course of action with resolute determination that may exceed appropriate limits.
“This ‘never surrender’ mindset is called intransigence, or pertinacity… we see it in CrossFit performers who push themselves to the point of exertional rhabdomyolysis.”
Crafty schemes or plots, typically intended to accomplish some harmful or devious purpose through cunning manipulation or underhanded tactics.
“This rivalry drove the figure skaters to lofty heights and excellent feats, but it also led to twisted machinations and an injured knee.”
Feeling or showing resentment toward someone because of their possessions, qualities, or success; envying in a way that denies goodwill.
“Imagine they had mutual respect and willed one another’s good, rather than begrudging each other’s successes. Would a more amiable relationship have impacted their level of play?”
Reading Comprehension
Test Your Understanding
5 questions covering different RC question types
1According to Little, a sportsperson must possess pride (superbia) to be successful at elite levels of competition.
2What changed about Little’s competitive approach after becoming a mother that negatively affected her performance?
3Which sentence best explains why performance-enhancing vices are particularly difficult to eliminate from sports?
4Evaluate whether each statement accurately represents Little’s argument about pride in athletics:
Pride’s epistemic error (perceiving abilities inaccurately) is unlikely to enhance performance
Pride appears identically across team and individual sports contexts
Pride’s constant need to prove superiority provides strong motivation to compete intensely
Select True or False for all three statements, then click “Check Answers”
5Based on Little’s discussion of the Jordan-Pippen counterfactual, what can we infer about her position on the relationship between rivalry and performance?
FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
Performance-enhancing vices are character defects—like selfishness, pride, envy, and intransigence—that make athletes more competitive while undermining their flourishing as complete human beings. Unlike performance-enhancing drugs, which are external substances that can be tested and regulated, these vices are internal character traits that athletes develop through practice and that sports systematically select for and reinforce. The problem is insidious because these traits help achieve athletic success while simultaneously damaging relationships, sustainable physical practices, and moral character.
Intransigence is perseverance taken to excess—continuing past when one ought to stop, toward bad ends, or at costs to higher allegiances. While virtuous perseverance involves sustained commitment to worthy goals within appropriate limits, intransigence involves stubborn refusal to abandon course even when physical safety, relationships, or more important responsibilities demand it. Examples include Mount Everest climbers who imperil rescue workers, athletes competing through injuries that cause permanent damage, or runners maintaining ‘streaks’ despite family needs. The distinction lies in whether persistence serves overall human flourishing or merely narrow athletic objectives.
Following Thomas Aquinas, Little contrasts vicious pride with virtuous magnanimity. Pride involves inordinate desire for excellence and believing oneself superior to others—it makes knowledge errors (misperceiving abilities) and valuing errors (prioritizing oneself inappropriately). Magnanimity, by contrast, aspires greatly with fitting rather than excessive desire for excellence, recognizes dependence on others, and strives in ways compatible with community. Both involve high aspirations, but magnanimity pursues excellence within proper limits and relationships, while pride elevates self above appropriate bounds. Athletes can be ambitious without being proud.
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This is an Advanced-level article requiring sophisticated vocabulary comprehension and the ability to follow complex philosophical arguments. It demands understanding of virtue ethics terminology (epistemic error, magnanimity, pertinacity), tracking nuanced distinctions between similar concepts (pride versus magnanimity, perseverance versus intransigence), and synthesizing abstract philosophical frameworks with concrete athletic examples. The argument structure moves between personal narrative, conceptual analysis, historical cases, and ethical implications—requiring readers to integrate multiple levels of abstraction. Success requires not just comprehension but also evaluative thinking about Little’s claims.
This emphasis challenges the compartmentalization that allows athletes to justify vicious behavior in sport by treating athletic identity as separate from their complete personhood. Little argues that character traits developed through daily athletic practice don’t remain confined to sports contexts—they shape patterns of thinking, feeling, and acting that carry into all life domains. An intransigent athlete may endanger rescue workers; a proud athlete becomes less teachable in all contexts; an envious competitor struggles to celebrate others’ successes in any relationship. The costs of athletic vices are borne not just by the athlete but by their entire community.
The Ultimate Reading Course covers 9 RC question types: Multiple Choice, True/False, Multi-Statement T/F, Text Highlight, Fill in the Blanks, Matching, Sequencing, Error Spotting, and Short Answer. This comprehensive coverage prepares you for any reading comprehension format you might encounter.
