John Gunst Communitas in Sports

Communitas of Sports

-Growing up with three brothers it was always a given that at every chance I would be signed up for any team that had space. I bring this up because we’ve been talking about communitas for the past few days. Communitas refers to the unstructured society in which everyone is equal and there outside lives have no effect on the reputation they have in this new society. This immediately brings me back to my days as a freshman in high school, where no one is equal. I should clarify that it doesn’t make me think of the “high school” aspect of high school, but the days I spent on the cross country team. When I went out as a freshman, thats not what I was accepted as there. When I showed up for practice I was just another runner, like everyone else, unlike the days I spent inside the school were I was a lowly freshman.