At the beginning of the 20^thcentury, Baron Pierre de Coubertin was an early proponent of the emerging field of sports psychology.  In fact, the theme of the 1913 Olympic Congress in Lausanne was “The Psychology of Sport.”  A decade later, having studied the effects of sport and exercise on adults in all manner of circumstances, he had developed a set of insights on the therapeutic value of intense physical activity.  He never tired of preaching the benefits that sport could deliver to individuals, communities and nations, which is evident in this excerpt from “The Truth About Sport: An Open Letter to Frantz-Reichel,” which appeared in Le Figaro in July of 1927.  Frantz-Reichel was an early colleague of the Barons in the French sports movement in the late 19^thcentury who later served as Secretary-general of the 1924 Paris Olympic Games.  He remained an influential figure in French sport long after the Baron had seen his own influence wane in his home country.  Here, Coubertin was appealing to his old comrade to help him implement a new vision of sport education for adults. 

“It is for the adult, over-taxed and exhausted by modern life, that sport constitutes an essential counterbalance, an almost infallible means of recovery, a discipline that nothing can replace.”