On his first trip to England in 1883, Baron Pierre de Coubertin was stunned by what he witnessed on the fields of play.  At school after school, the Baron observed a level of camaraderie between teammates—and sometimes competitors—that set his mind to thinking about its broader applications.  Camaraderie is nothing less than mutual trust and friendship—and as the Baron noted, it emerges quite naturally in shared goals that drive a team toward victory. The passage below is from the Baron’s treatise on “The Philosophy of Physical Culture,’ which appeared in the Olympic Review in May of 1909.

“Certain social strengths are unquestionably useful: comparative analysis, a taste for the struggle, a spirit of reconciliation, solidarity, esprit de corps.  Of all the forms of camaraderie to which man is inclined, perhaps none acts more forcefully and more effectively on him than the camaraderie of sports. The shared threat of some danger, or at least of risk, frequent mutual assistance, physical exhilaration, and the impact of a virile, healthy undertaking all work together to make the social aspects of physical exercise pleasant and efficacious. The habit of making comparisons, which elicits admiration and at times a little advantageous twinge of envy, as I said before, are natural outcomes of this process.”