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WVU Department of Philosophy featured in Jan. 22 Sports Illustrated
THE QUESTION gets called up to the Big Show
It’s safe to say that Vince Lombardi most likely would have had a philosophical difference or two with West Virginia University’s Dr. Sharon Ryan.
After all, he’s the Green Bay Packer coaching legend who coined that axiom about winning being the “only thing.” And she’s the WVU Department of Philosophy chair who has spent the past several weeks getting a host of Mountaineer marquee athletes and coaches to really consider (in the best philosophical sense) that whole concept of “winning” and how it might go beyond numbers on the scoreboard.
It’s all part of a deep-thinking exercise she fronted two years ago called THE QUESTION, and you can read about in the Jan. 22 Sports Illustrated, which is on newsstands now.
SI writer Steve Rushin caught up with Ryan and her colleagues after THE QUESTION went on the road to Jacksonville and the Gator Bowl, the site of WVU’s thrilling 38-35 comeback over Georgia Tech on New Year’s Day.
Armed with a “camcorder and curiosity,” as she puts it, Ryan asked those players and coaches to consider (then, reconsider) the question, “Is winning everything?” Everyone from football coach Rich Rodriguez to women’s basketball star Meg Bulger got into the act, and you can view their responses at http://thequestion.blogs.wvu.edu .
Most of the respondents took a Socratic track, and one answer, by long-snapper Zach Flynt, is sure to make Ol’ Vince himself smile down from the pristine fields of Football Heaven.
As for Ryan, well, she’s smiling, because THE QUESTION is accomplishing everything she hoped it would.
“Well, it’s obviously a thrill to be in Sports Illustrated, of all places,” said Ryan, a Long Island, N.Y., native who faithfully went to New York Mets home games as a little girl and played college basketball on her way to earning her doctorate.
“I couldn’t be happier,” she said. “THE QUESTION is going beyond its borders, and that was the whole idea.”
The department chair came up with the idea as way to introduce critical thinking and reasoning – the two bedrocks of her profession – to area youngsters, between the ages of 5 and 12.
No softball-questions, here. Ryan’s budding philosophers to date have bumped up against such brow-wrinklers as, “Does God exist?” “When is war OK?” and “Is the death penalty wrong?”
You’ll find those responses at the above site as well. Be they from scholarship athletes or school kids looking forward recess, Ryan said every single answer has been “amazingly insightful” in proving her point that philosophy is interwoven with the fabric of our life – whether we realize it or not.
It’s all about “wrestling with the big philosophical questions,” she said, that range from religion to going to war to how people are treated.
“Unfortunately, many people wrestle alone,” she said. “Unfortunately, many people do not wrestle and they accept simple answers. I just want people to really wonder, think, listen, share and respectfully evaluate their ideas openly. That’s what philosophy is all about and that’s what THE QUESTION is all about.”
Ryan has been philosophy chair since July 2004. Under her leadership, majors in the department have more than doubled. The department is part of WVU’s Eberly College of Arts and Sciences.