Timely commentary regarding ethical and legal issues in sports by Jack Bowen, ISLE Board Member.
The Institute of Sports Law and Ethics (ISLE) was founded by Santa Clara Law, the SCU Department of Athletics and Recreation, and the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics. Its 30-member board includes distinguished athletes and sports executives. The institute’s signature event is an annual Symposium on Sports Law and Ethics in September, covering subjects such as concussions, steroids, amateurism, and the commercial use of athletes’ images. In 2012 ISLE added a community outreach component, established the ETHOS Award, and created a task force to study amateurism.
There seems to have been a considerable increase in morally vacuous incidents at the youth sports level recently. The incidents include everything from coaches’ poor treatment of their own players to how coaches instruct their athletes to treat opponents and…
Countless youth sports advocates extol the ways in which lessons learned playing sports transcend the playing field. More so, proponents of youth sport tout how participation in athletics provides a unique and invaluable venue for adolescents to experience such virtues.…
Framing The Issue I find few things more energizing than a thoughtful discussion with exceptionally contemplative people. It’s not to say we all must agree: actually, most often, the best conversations involve moments of disagreement, in which my own ideas…
I had the very fortunate opportunity to have taught Michael Harris in my Philosophy class back in 2007. In my class, I remember Michael as a good, thoughtful student, but not for the typical reasons one excels at philosophy. He…
It all started with a seemingly benign question about Fantasy Football, of all things. A recent sports law & ethics symposium at Santa Clara University featured a four-member panel including two lawyers, the COO of a major fantasy league provider,…
“What do I need to do to play more on this team?” Youth sports coaches often field a question of this sort from their players. In fact, many organizations advocating for youth sports encourage athletes to instigate just this type…
I’ve taught philosophy now for 15 years at the middle school, high school, and college level. And I’ve been involved with water polo for almost 30 years, first as a player at every level and, for the past 17 years,…
At some point during each sports season, we hear of a star athlete behaving nefariously off the playing field. These incidents lead to sports pundits decrying the punitive measures of respective leagues and examining various other interesting, relevant social issues. …
There’s a chance I’ve done somewhat of a disservice to this enterprise of highlighting value and virtue in sport. It’s been done through my repeatedly referencing sport as a “catalyst,” “vehicle” and “springboard” for discovering such virtues as justice, fairness,…
Immediately after scoring a goal, soccer players can be seen flailing wildly as if they’d accomplished the most rare feat in human history. The Wikipedia entry on “Goal Celebration” lists 33 common celebrations, comical in and of themselves to see…
