Let's Kill 'Em: Understanding and Controlling Violence in Sports

Let's Kill 'Em: Understanding and Controlling Violence in Sports explores the philosophical and practical aspects of the traditional Western approach to competition. This approach has distorted the manner in which we teach and learn how to compete, focusing on the prominence of violence in sport. Jon Leizman suggests practical methods of controlling violence in professional team sports, and offers a discussion of how competition is understood in terms of the self and the opponent. He follows the philosophy of Western sport from its beginnings with the ancient Greeks, through the common deficiencies and inadequacies of the current state of sports, noting its insufficient remedies for violence, using many examples from popular professional sports. As a solution to the problem of violence in sports, Leizman develops a unique overview of sports using several concepts grafted from Eastern philosophical traditions including Taoism and Zen Buddhism. Finally, he suggests philosophical and administrative remedies for on-the-field violence taking place outside the actual game and which begins with sport's youngest participants.