Fletcher alum and founder of the Institute for International Sport Daniel Doyle spoke yesterday about how sports can educate youth about cooperation and peace. Entitled "The Role of Sport in International Relations," the event was held in Cabot and drew a crowd of about forty students.
Doyle cited his experience as a high school basketball player on tour in Europe in 1967, a time marked by heated anti-American sentiment abroad, as the first time he recognized the power of sports to bring people together.
"After the game, we would engage in a social with the opposing teams and fans," Doyle said. "We engaged in wonderful conversations with people who had booed us an hour earlier. At the end of the game, the reason we were gathered here was because of our shared love for sport.
"It was at this point when I realized for the first time in my life that sport had utility beyond wins and losses," Doyle continued. "The point of the trip became more than winning games; it was one of education."
Later on while working as a basketball coach for Trinity College in 1979, Doyle traveled to Cuba and what is now the Czech Republic to help as his school competed against the countries' national teams. While there, he decided to leave coaching to pursue his interest in the overlap between international relations and sports.
"While I was in Cuba, I decided to make a decision about my career. I could see the power of sport as a medium to bring people together," he said. "I saw it in Europe, I saw it in Prague and I saw it in Cuba. I made the decision at the time to leave coaching. It was a difficult decision, but I just loved the notion of international sport."
Knowing that he "needed an education to do this," Doyle enrolled at Fletcher.
"I loved my experience here," Doyle said. "I have great affection for the Fletcher School and for my professors."
While at Fletcher, Doyle drafted a paper that introduced the idea of an institute dedicated to the promotion of sports as an international relations tool. With help from the president of the University of Rhode Island, Doyle was able to establish the Institute for International Sport (IIS) in 1986.
Today, the IIS is responsible for organizing several events that promote sportsmanship among youth worldwide, including National Sportsmanship Day and the World Scholar-Athlete Games.
"At the core of the ... World Scholar-Athlete Games was [the idea] that there would be no national teams, but instead there would be twelve young men from twelve different countries," Doyle said. "When we came up with the idea in 1993, our goal was that 50 countries would sign up. We were pleasantly surprised when 108 countries signed up instead." It has further expanded since then.
At the IIS, Doyle also organized Belfast United, a sports program that placed Protestant and Catholic children from Ireland on the same basketball and soccer teams.
"Beyond introducing these kids to each other," Doyle said, "what was happening with Belfast United was that Catholic kids on the team would go home and tell their families, 'These Protestants on the team with me are good guys,' and vice versa. The program was very successful and it went on for ten years. It stopped when the peace in Ireland had broken."
Doyle also touched upon lessons from his book "The Encyclopedia of Sports Parenting." He presented his "Anchor Aspiration Theory," which states that academic rigor and character development nurture successful athletes.
"Make sure that both anchors are safely moored and then aspirations will come more effectively," he said.
Audience reaction to the event, which was interactive and ended with a game of Simon Says, was enthusiastic.
"He had a very interesting perspective on the role that sports can play in international relations," freshman Matthew Burch said. "What he talked about is something that I've now realized that I am interested in personally but I have never seen or heard of before."
Fletcher's International Negotiation and Conflict Resolution Program sponsored the event.
