Sigma Phi Epsilon, California Theta

The ancient Greek spirit of contest that inspired individuals, then as now, to give their best, is clearly what differentiated the ancient Greeks from everyone and everything which came before them-from the Assyrians and the Babylonians, the Sumerians, the Egyptians, and the Minoans of Crete. Indeed, that emphasis on the individual and the desire to excel was something that made the way that the Greeks looked at life so original and exciting and truly extraordinary. As with every other aspect of their civilization, the Greeks too physical excellence and athletics and made them part of their ideal. With sports, they literally took the ball and ran, taking something that was natural and common and transforming it into something unprecedented and unique.

"Always to be the best and to excel over others." That is the much-quoted exhortation Peleus gave to his son Achilles as the young hero set off to battle in the Trojan War. The Greeks summed it up in one word: arete. In other words, excellence in every part of life- moral, intellectual, and physical-that together contributed to the development of the whole person. In the Hellenic view of things, the mind could not exist without the body. At the same time, the body was meaningless without the mind.

In ancient Greece, developing body and mind were two complementary partners of a quality education. The ideal education consisted of exercise (what we would term physical education) along with vocal and instrumental music. The ancient Greeks exalted the body, and they were great lovers of music. As a result, athletics and music were inextricably linked, joined in education to build the body, stimulate the mind, and ultimately, inspire the soul.

These were the ideas and values that made athletic full of meaning-key elements in the way the Greeks competed in sports and lived life in general, which is to say to the fullest. They inspired timeless things like sportsmanship and comradeship, accepting the challenge, doing one's best, giving 110 percent. These were the foundation and very essence of the Olympic Games and competitive sports then and, in many ways unchanged, now.

At the close of the 1800s when Cecil Rhodes set up the scholarships named after him, he stipulated that men be chosen who exhibited undoubted excellence and also proved themselves to have the balanced qualities of character, intellect, leadership, and physical vigor as shown by fondness for and success in sports. Rhodes did not wish his scholars to be only bookworms, and he emphatically stated in his will that "no student be qualified or disqualified for election to a scholarship on account of his race or religious opinions." He instructed his committees of selection to look for the following traits in choosing each of his scholars who was to proceed to Oxford University and become "a man for the world's fight":scholarship, courage, manliness, devotion to duty, unselfishness.