Sport as a Discipline-Building System: How Structured Athletic Environments Shape Adult Identity, Behavior, and Life Outcomes

Society measures children’s participation in sport based primarily on athletic outcomes: wins and losses, standings, championships, or playing professionally. Because only a select few will make it to the elite level or become professional athletes, we must question what else sport has to offer our youth. This research seeks to understand organized sport as an institution of discipline that engrains lifelong habits, independent of athletic outcomes. Sport in general, like many institutions in society, places youth under a schedule of training, authority, accountability, and failure. These repetitive systems allow children to learn discipline and skills that will reach far beyond their years playing a sport. For the purpose of this study, discipline is not treated as a personality trait that one is born with, but a learned behavior that is reinforced through routine, consequence, and corporeal knowledge. Based on current literature found within sports science, developmental psychology, and education, this paper will analyze how sport engrains discipline and life skills into our youth that will follow them into adulthood. Once these traits have been better understood, we can place more value on how society, schools, and policymakers view organized sport. Article visualizations: