I'm kind of torn. Played HS sports. And I agree 100% with what you're saying. The US glorifies athletics in an unbalanced way. To quote Bill James http://www.s

I'm kind of torn. Played HS sports. And I agree 100% with what you're saying. The US glorifies athletics in an unbalanced way. To quote Bill James http://www.slate.com/articles/sports/sports_nut/2011/03/shakespeare_and_verlander.html http://www.slate.com/articles/sports/sports_nut/2011/03/shak... Our society is very, very good at developing certain types of skills and certain types of genius. We are fantastically good at identifying and developing athletic skills—better than we are, really, at almost anything else However, the US is pretty darn successful. And considering sports is such a big part of the cultural fabric I have to wonder if sports doesn't have something to do with that success? Specifically, to throw out a hypothesis ... it would be that there are benefits to the dog eat dog competitiveness that sports teaches.