The Duke of Wellington is quoted as saying: “The Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton.” As he reflected on the rich, athletic tradition of Eton College in England, Wellington drew a comparison between the qualities of the successful athlete and team, and those of the victorious soldier and army. What were those qualities? Leadership? Teamwork? Esprit de corps? No doubt these and more.
From experience, Wellington understood that hard work and teamwork create winners, and that the fundamentals of readiness and winning are transferable from one challenge to another. Wellington’s insight is as applicable to the U.S. Army today as it was to his army almost 200 years ago.
In the current dynamic 21st-century environment, it is important that concepts such as unit readiness, mission accomplishment and national security, and words like leadership, teamwork and winning, remain embedded in the minds of soldiers and the foundation of the Army. One opportunity to do so is on the intramural athletic field.
Around the Army and throughout the year, countless soldiers make the extra effort early in the morning, late in the afternoon or in the evening to participate on unit intramural teams. The Army, as well as the soldier, benefits greatly.
Invaluable Resource
A competitive intramural athletic program, given interest and emphasis, is an invaluable resource a commander may use to strengthen unit cohesion. Such a program should focus on and promote the three building blocks of strong unit foundation—leadership, teamwork and a winning attitude or esprit de corps.
Gen. Douglas MacArthur recognized, as did the Duke of Wellington, that competitive athletics offer numerous opportunities around leadership training. While serving from 1919 to 1922 as superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, MacArthur formalized a program of intramural athletics, today called company athletics, that remains a cornerstone of cadet development.
The academy’s Department of Physical Education’s 2019 academic year guidelines provide background regarding MacArthur’s intent:
MacArthur required every cadet to participate in athletic competition because he was convinced that those who had taken part in organized sport made the best Soldiers … MacArthur believed athletic participation produced fortitude, self-control, resolution, courage, mental agility, and physical development; characteristics he believed were fundamental and necessary for all Soldiers. USMA’s competitive sports program supports the Army values of loyalty, duty, respect, selfless service, honor, integrity, and personal courage. It is designed to teach these values in an athletic setting. The nature of competitive sports provides opportunities that are difficult to replicate in the conventional classroom, in other extracurricular activities, or in military field training.
These words are just as relevant to the leadership development of soldiers at the small-unit level as they are of cadets at the academy. In keeping with the mission and purpose of the academy, the current company athletics program at West Point, part of the overarching competitive sports program, plays out daily during “MacArthur Time”—a period designated for competitive sports from 4:15 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.—with the goals of developing “warrior athletes of character” and building “teams of significance.”
Winning Spirit
In a less formal manner at the small-unit level, an intramural sports program is, or can be, a leadership development tool, while also building teamwork and fostering and sustaining a winning spirit.
Commenting on teamwork in February 1987, Gen. Carl Vouno, then-chief of staff of the Army, said, “Teams are the fundamental lifeblood of the Army. We fight as a team.” Soldiers fight for many reasons. They fight to defend the nation in times of conflict and war, to preserve the heritage of those who have gone before them and to ensure that success in the present becomes the proud history of the future.
Most importantly, soldiers fight for other soldiers. They fight for their friends, their teammates. But teams and teamwork take time to create.
Small-unit teams are the product of tough training, shared hardships and frequent interaction both at work and in social settings. Soldiers feel part of the team when they are allowed to use their strengths to contribute to the group’s success, when they realize their individual weaknesses are compensated for by the strong points of others and when they see their contributions magnified by the group’s ability to capitalize on them. By helping make these conditions possible, a strong, small-unit intramural sports program can be instrumental in building and sustaining unit teamwork.
‘Our’ Team
An imaginative commander can use a unit sports program to help create an atmosphere in which every soldier feels as if they are a contributing member. At any one time, only a select few soldiers may participate on a team, but the shared pride of unit success goes beyond just the immediate members of the team. Supportive soldiers will refer to platoon, company or battalion teams as “our” team.
This identity with the unit and their fellow soldiers creates new relationships and extends the association of unit soldiers beyond the workplace to an informal setting where further bonding can take place.
A commander also can organize a signature or special event the entire unit can rally around—a tournament, game or race in which everyone can participate as a player, organizer or spectator. Events such as this can serve to sustain unit teamwork throughout the year.
Retired Maj. Gen. Aubrey “Red” Newman—originator of the infantry motto “Follow Me!”—provided a definition of esprit de corps in his 1987 book, What Are Generals Made Of?: “A spirit of enthusiastic devotedness to and support of the common goals of a group to which one belongs.” Newman went on to describe esprit de corps as “pride in our unit in a combat sense, with high, ready-to-fight standards and shared confidence in each other.”
Unit intramural sports programs and athletic contests, wherever they exist, contribute directly to this type of unit atmosphere. By exercising leadership and fostering teamwork within the unit, they can help build and solidify the devotedness, support and common goals Newman notes in the first part of his definition of esprit.
These qualities, enhanced through other dimensions of unit activity, contribute directly to the pride, ready-to-fight standards and shared confidence so identifiable in units or groups that view themselves as, and are, in fact, winners.
Esprit de corps is the direct result of active, concerned leadership working to build and strengthen individual and unit teamwork. To some extent, it is a factor of individual morale and small-unit cohesion, but it is primarily an aura that pervades the larger unit and is evident by pride in unit membership, a distinct feeling of unity of purpose and a signature devotion to the overall unit mission.
In May 1962, MacArthur delivered his final address to the Corps of Cadets at West Point. As he approached the end of his message, he said, “And through all this welter of change and development, your mission remains fixed, determined, inviolable. It is to win our wars.”
Sixty years later, his strong words carry a similar significance in today’s turbulent environment. His message rings clear. While soldiers cannot be oblivious to the uncertain potentialities of the challenges and changes around them, their effort and concentration must be primarily fixed on the essential military concerns they can most directly affect.
Direct Impacts
In this regard, leadership, teamwork and unit esprit continue to be foundations of unit cohesion and fully within the realm of a commander to address. Their impacts on small-unit and even higher-level force readiness, mission accomplishment and, ultimately, national security, can be both direct and cumulative.
While not a singular solution to the forces buffeting the Army, an active intramural, competitive athletic program can be one of the tools most readily available to commanders who seek to weave these qualities into the bonds that strengthen their units. Given interest and emphasis, these programs offer much in the way of reward and dividend to those who play to win today, building toward the readiness needed to fight and win on other fields on other days.
Col. Charles “Chip” Sniffin, U.S. Army retired, served over 28 years in the Army, retiring in 2006 as deputy commander and chief of staff of the U.S. Army Community and Family Support Center, Alexandria, Virginia. He then served 11 years as a DoD civilian as chief of the Actions Division, Joint Secretariat, Joint Staff, the Pentagon.