When did sport begin? If sport is, in essence, play, the claim might be made that sport is much older than humankind, for, as we all have observed, the beasts play. Dogs and cats wrestle and play ball games. Fishes and birds dance. The apes have simple, pleasurable games. Frolicking infants, school children playing tag, and adult arm wrestlers are demonstrating strong, transgenerational and transspecies bonds with the universe of animals - past, present, and future. Young animals, particularly, tumble, chase, run, wrestle, mock, imitate, and laugh(or so it seems) to the point of delighted exhaustion. Their play, and ours, appears to serve no other purpose than to give pleasure to the players, and apparently, to remove us temporarily from the anguish of life in earnest. Some philosophers have claimed that our playfulness is the most noble part of our basic nature. In their generous conceptions, play harmlessly and experimentally permits us to put our creative forces, fantasy, and imagination into action. Play is release from the tedious battles against scarcity and decline which are the incessant, and inevitable, tragedies of life. This is a grand conception that excites and provokes. The holders of this view claim that the origins of our highest accomplishments - liturgy, literature, and law - can be traced to a play impulse which, paradoxically, we see most purely enjoyed by young beasts and children. Our sports, in this rather happy, nonfatalistic view of human nature, are more splendid creations of the nondatable, transspecies play impulse.

    體育運動開始于何時?如果體育運動的本質就是游戲的話，我們就可以宣稱體育運動比人類古老，因為正如我們所觀察到的，野獸也進行嬉戲。 狗和貓會扭抱玩球，魚和鳥翩翩起舞，猿類會進行一些簡單的、愉快的游戲。 雀躍的幼兒，捉迷藏的學童和成年摔跤者展示出人與動物界的有力的跨越世代與物種的永恒的聯系--特別是幼獸，它們翻筋斗、追逐、奔跑、扭打、模仿、嬉笑(或者看起來是)，直到愉快地精疲力盡。 他們的玩耍，同我們的一樣，似乎并沒有別的目的而只是給游戲者以愉悅，暫時把我們從嚴肅生活的痛苦中拉出來。一些哲學家稱我們的嬉戲是我們本質中最崇高的部分。 依他們這些隨意性很大的見解，游戲無害而且實驗性地允許我們的創造力、幻想和想象發揮作用。 游戲讓人們從永不間斷亦不可避免的生活悲劇-與乏匱和衰退進行的枯燥抗爭中得到一種解脫。 這是一個令人興奮、給人啟發的偉大見解。 這種見解的持有者宣稱，我們的最高成就如宗教典禮、文學、法律的起源可以追溯到游戲的沖動。 但令人不解的是我們看到只有幼獸和小孩子才最純粹地享受著這種沖動。 從這種比較豁達和非宿命的人性觀來看，我們的運動是超時代、跨物種的輝煌的創造。