Today’s episode marks the end of our second season at The 252, “talk radio as done by academics.” So Chris, Sam, and I started by looking back at what we thought were the most memorable and most significant sports moments of 2019. Remarkably, we talked a lot about horse racing, golf, soccer, and basketball, but not much about the sports that have tended to dominate The 252: baseball and (American) football.
That theme carried over into our second segment interview with a Bethel colleague, philosopher Ray VanArragon, who is a long-distance runner himself and the father of two elite young golfers. In addition to sharing what it’s like to parent such skilled athletes, we asked Ray about the first-year gen ed course he teaches on ethics and sports, which probes the ethical quandaries involved in, say, the violence of hockey and football and inquires into the capacity of sports (playing them and cheering for them) to cultivate virtue and vice. (Ray previously discussed virtue ethics on the first season of The Pietist Schoolman Podcast.)
All in all, a very 252 way to close a great second season. We hope you’ve enjoyed this set of episodes, which you can stream or download from Podbean or Apple Podcasts. We’ll be back in February to start our third season — the first to overlap with the new Bethel course that has been the impetus for the podcast.
The Pietist Schoolman 