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When did sport begin? If sport is, in essence, play, the claim might be made that sport is much olderthan humankind, for, as we all have observed, the beasts play. Dogs andcats wrestle and play ball games. Fishes and birds dance. The apes have simple, pleasurable games. Frolicking infants, school children playing tag, andadult arm wrestlers are demonstrating strong, transgenerational andtransspecies bonds with the universe of animals - past, present, andfuture. Young animals, particularly, tumble, chase, run, wrestle, mock,imitate, and laugh to the point of delighted exhaustion. Theirplay, and ours, appears to serve no other purpose than to give pleasure tothe players, and apparently, to remove us temporarily from the anguish of lifein earnest. Somephilosophers have claimed that our playfulness is the most noble part of ourbasic nature. In their generous conceptions, play harmlessly andexperimentally permits us to put our creative forces, fantasy, and imagination intoaction. Play is release from the tedious battles against scarcity and declinewhich are the incessant, and inevitable, tragedies of life. This is agrand conception that excites and provokes. The holders of this view claim thatthe origins of our highest accomplishments - liturgy, literature, and law- canbe traced to a play impulse which, paradoxically, we see most purely enjoyed byyoung beasts and children. Our sports, in this rather happy, nonfatalistic view of human nature, are more splendid creations of the nondatable,transspecies play impulse. | 
