SOURCE: "Sport, the Aesthetic, and Narrative," in Philosophy Today, Vol. 39, No. 1, Spring, 1995, pp. 93-104.

In the following essay, Feezell humorously examines competitive collegiate sports in light of Dewey's Art as Experience.

From Paul Weiss's relatively early and legitimating reflections in Sport: A Philosophic Inquiry, to more recent ruminations in books and scholarly publications, numerous philosophers have been fascinated by the fascination of sport. For example, in his recent book, Philosophy of Sport, Drew Hyland again wonders about the "significant and apparently transcultural appeal" of play and sport.¹ I won't attempt to catalogue the various attempts to understand why so many of us are attracted to sport, especially those sports that involve the playing of games. Like many people, I've wasted a good part of my life playing and watching these games, and I've given up being ashamed or apologetic about it. But I still want to understand the...