The main thing for me is to consider sport at an equal level as

“The main thing for me is to consider sport at an equal level as you would consider mathematics or poetry at school. It's another place where you can send your kids; they can have fun, but you can expect them to have good teachers, and you can expect them to progress.” So declares Vincent Kompany, the leader who carried himself not only as a warrior on the field but as a thinker beyond it. His words remind us that sport, too often dismissed as mere entertainment, is in truth an arena of discipline, creativity, and growth, equal in dignity to the intellectual pursuits of the classroom.

The meaning of this wisdom lies in balance. Just as mathematics sharpens the mind and poetry opens the soul, so too does sport forge the body and the spirit. In sport, children learn resilience, courage, and unity—qualities no less noble than those taught by numbers or verses. Kompany insists that it must not be relegated to the sidelines of education, but raised to the same height: a field where character is shaped, as surely as equations and stanzas shape intellect and imagination.

The origin of such thought springs from Kompany’s own life. Born in Brussels, rising through the ranks to captain Manchester City, he knew firsthand that sport was not a distraction but a teacher. On the pitch he learned perseverance through injury, leadership in moments of doubt, and humility in both victory and defeat. For him, the football field was a school of its own, one that demanded as much discipline as any lecture hall. His words are not theory, but testimony.

Consider also the story of the ancient Greeks, who held the Olympic Games not merely as contests of strength, but as sacred festivals that honored the gods and displayed the virtues of men. To them, the athlete was not separate from the poet or the philosopher; he was another bearer of human excellence. Plato himself was trained in wrestling, and his name means “broad-shouldered.” For the Greeks, wisdom, beauty, and strength belonged together—no one was fully educated without all three.

The lesson here is profound: education must be whole. If we elevate only mathematics and poetry, we risk raising minds and souls without bodies, thinkers who falter in endurance, dreamers who lack discipline. If we elevate only sport, we risk raising strong bodies without reflection, warriors without wisdom. But when all three are honored—mind, spirit, and body—we nurture the complete human being, capable of courage, clarity, and compassion.

Kompany speaks also of the need for good teachers in sport, just as in any discipline. For children must not only play, they must be guided—taught not just how to win, but how to lose with dignity, how to work as a team, how to lift others when they fall. The field, like the classroom, must be a place where growth is expected, where progress is measured not only in trophies, but in the strengthening of character.

The practical action for us is this: let us value sport not as a pastime, but as an education. Support coaches who teach wisdom as well as skill. Encourage children to see their games not merely as play, but as lessons in perseverance, respect, and joy. And in our own lives, let us honor the body as we honor the mind and the heart, for each is a temple that must be cultivated.

Thus, the teaching endures: sport, mathematics, and poetry are not rivals, but companions. Together they form the triad of human excellence—discipline, imagination, and endurance. Let no one say that sport is lesser, for on its fields are forged virtues as eternal as those found in books and songs. And let us raise a generation whole in body, mind, and soul, as the ancients once dreamed, and as Kompany now reminds us.