Running With Zoé: A Conversation on the Meaning of Play, Games, and Sport

It was an extraordinary day, June 2, 1983.  I was poised on the rear of a large flatbed trailer that was being pulled down Broad Street in Philadelphia.  Standing next to and around me were several players and their families from the 1983 National Basketball Association World Champion Philadelphia Seventy-Sixers. Other coaches, players and Seventy-Sixer administrative staff were on similar flatbed trailers that preceded and followed ours.  Yes!  I was part of this great basketball team that was celebrating after having reached the Promised Land.

At the beginning of the 1982-83 season I had been hired by the Seventy-Sixers as the first full-time strength and conditioning coach (Dance) in the NBA.  Now, after a successful regular season (65 wins & 17 losses) and a nearly perfect post season, we were the 1983 World Champions of Basketball.

As the parade crept through the heart of Philadelphia rejoicing fans surrounded us.  Some estimates were that as many as one million, five hundred thousand people participated in this tribute.  Broad Street was absolutely wild.  People were literally hanging from the windows of skyscrapers.  Folks of every age group and of mixed ethnicity were waving and screaming with ecstasy.  A few folks actually took their clothes off and were rejoicing naked.  It was unbelievable, to say the least.

It was somewhere during the journey down Broad Street towards Veterans Stadium that I asked myself, what is this all about?  Just what is this phenomenon we call sport?  And, what has sport done to these folks to cause this many to celebrate in ways never seen, heard, or felt, at any other time or place in my life?

There had been many moments in my life where I thought I had reached the height of human expression and spirit.  As an adolescent I sat with my father and brother at a Doors concert in Sacramento, California, and watched Jim Morrison dance and sing in ways unimaginable to a fourteen year old.  As a teenager I witnessed several demonstrations and concerts in the San Francisco area.  These were the great Peace-Love-Music festivals of the late 1960's and early 1970's, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Country Joe and the Fish.  And, as an amateur and professional actor/dancer I had performed on stage, hearing and feeling the cheers of appreciative audiences.  One high point of my calling to the stage was performing with The American Ballet Theatre in the Ballet Petroucka at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles.  Also, in 1980 as Graduate Assistant (Dance Conditioning) to then Head Basketball Coach Larry Brown at U.C.L.A., I was part of a team that went to the N.C.A.A. Final Four Championship in Indianapolis, Indiana.  As spectacular as all of these life experiences were, none were even close to what I was feeling on this electrifying June morning.  The celebration in Philadelphia was downright orgasmic.  Ecstasy of the highest order.

It was during the Seventy-Sixers’ parade that I began my quest to understand the phenomenon of sport.  This revelation and the ensuing crusade originated more than twenty-five years ago.  During that twenty–five years I have continued sharing information about dance, movement, and conditioning with amateur, college, and professional athletes and teams, worked extensively with American and Canadian figure skaters, and remained active in the theatre and dance arenas.  Most importantly, I have been a devoted game and sport philosopher, thinking about and trying to understand the nature and conduct of humans and their participation in games and sport.  Although much closer than I was twenty-five years ago, I still seek answers to the many questions I have about play, games, and sport.  Running with Zoé, are my reflections at this juncture of the crusade.  The chapters of the book are a progress report on my journey towards an understanding of play, games, and sport.  It is my hope that by sharing my journey you will become closer to understanding the deeper meanings of play, games, and sport.  Our nearness may help bring society into greater harmony with the values that are inherent in the games we play.

Modern sport is one of the most watched, participated in, read about, and listened to events of our time.  This certainty was demonstrated by the fact that nearly one-hundred million Americans watched the Super Bowl in 2009.  Despite sport's popularity, those in sport and those who observe sport know little if anything about the deeper meanings of sport.

I began to ask questions of myself and others about