What Are Sacred Places In Sports

Paper topic: Using the concepts and categories of this class, reflect on your own experiences of sacred places in sports. Explicitly explain how and why these places are sacred so as to reveal the religious dimensions of sports. You will be graded on the degree to which you integrate your own cases with the theoretical perspectives of the History of Religions and Indigenous religious traditions.

Being an athlete has taught me many things about discipline, respect, and perseverance, characteristics that I also feel are learned through religion. A sport that I heavily participated in my life that I feel reflect a sacred place in sport is track and field where I specialized in the 400m and the 400m hurdles. Track and field is a collection of some of the oldest sports that have been competed in our human history and I personally find that sprinting or running is the rawest form of sport. The only objective of a sprint is to come first or go as fast as you can and
the only thing that is stopping you form going faster is your ability and the natural forces around you. When comparing sacredness to sport, I find it clearest when one can strip away of variables and look at it with simplicity.
The place I found sacred in sport was the track; it represented hard work, sweat, blood, tears, but also great joy, nervousness, and accomplishment.
Through the readings and personal experience, religion is a tool or sanctuary for all emotions. Humanity has found a place in their heart to both thank and grieve our own religions during accomplishments and disasters. In my experience, the track was this place, it was where all my practices were held and it was where I found doubt in myself to reach the goals I had planned. Hours were spent on this track struggling to find what I thought was a tangible thing that would help me become faster. When race day came around and I succeeded my goal, I realized what I was looking for wasn’t anything tangible, it wasn’t any gains in my body, but it was the mental belief that I could reach my goal. I shared my accomplishment with the track itself after I ran across the line like people praise their belief in an unexplainable entity for helping with an
accomplishment.
Religion has sacred places for people to find hope in life. In relation to the track, both places are places where individuals and groups of people come to explore what ability they have within themselves. I never thought I would ever make the comparison with religion but many arenas for sports have great sacred value to them. I feel that the reflective aspect of this assignment through the readings and analysis of personal experiences helps one see religion as a simpler aspect of life. All religion have very simple goals that most of us can somehow related to. Strip away the names and particular historical details, religion in general all portray values that are relatable. I found that sport is a perfect instrument to help express and understand what religion stands for.