Arête and Excellence
The essence of excellence in sport today is infused with an historical influence of where the Olympic games originally descended. The Ancient Greeks saw athletic excellence as not one sort of excellence but connected to the very humanness of being. Athletics for them was never divorced from who they were as people. Athletics was molded to all things of being Greek. To be excellent as a human being was also to be excellent in all things – the Greeks had a very specific word for it: Arête This Greek word arête comes …to us..connected to athletics of ancient Greece laden with a pletoria of meanings. A definition of arête would include virtue, skill, prowess, pride, excellence, valor, and nobility; but these words, ether taken individual or collectively, do not fulfill the meaning of arête. Arête existed…[and was} a goal to be sought and reached for by every Greek. … [T]he word carries with it a notion of ephemeral excellence… nestled and covered by virtue.
Thus for the Greeks athletics is a description of who one was and how one competed. One's character was tied to how one lived life and how one competed. It was important to win yes but only within the context of virtuous competition.