Author: M. L. Cavanaugh

By Major Matt Cavanaugh

Very famously, General Douglas MacArthur once said, “On the fields of friendly strife are sown the seeds that on other days, on other fields will bear the fruits of victory.”  But is this true?  Does sport participation really produce better military leaders?

I spend a good deal of time running and love exercise.  I grew up playing hockey, soccer, and a little rugby, some of which extended into college.  I’m the Officer in Charge of the Marathon Team at West Point – so I still maintain a strong connection with organized sports.  But long-held, standing assumptions about the way the world works can be wrong.  Recent academic studies have debunked the importance of breakfast in weight loss, the necessity of post-run cool downs, and the value of stretching for (running) injury prevention. As Mark Twain put it, “It ain’t what you know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”

From what I can tell there is absolutely no scholarship on the link between sports and military leadership.  Granted, there is likely a fair amount about the general connections between leadership and sports.  But these would represent generic studies inapplicable to a military audience.  For example, though an ex-quarterback may develop skills suitable for running a moderate-sized used car dealership – these ought not to be assumed sufficient for the chaotic violence of battlefield leadership. Consider the cases of two high performing former Army quarterbacks, Trent Steelman (West Point Class of 2012) and Nathan Sassaman (West Point Class of 1985).  As athletes these two may have been successful on the football field – while with respect to war, one failed outright while the other showed deep flaws that signaled he was not prepared for the rigors of combat.  The two contests are simply not the same: on the battlefield, there is no referee to appeal to, no clock to run out, and no meaningful scoreboard as the perpetual threat of violent veto exists to cancel any “results.” Yet we still persist in this sort of metaphorical military-football echo chamber.