In keeping with the broader mission of Great Hearts Texas, each sports program will strive to build a community of young men and women committed to moral, intellectual, and physical excellence. First and foremost, by participating in athletics, each student will be allowed to grow in prudence, justice, temperance, courage, and charity, and ultimately rejoice in the goodness of being through play.

The school is committed to ordering athletics within the mission of the academy and preventing the emergence of a separate “jock” culture. At Great Hearts, athletics does not exist as an island on its own, but as a noble enterprise that assists the Academy’s mission of promoting the fulfillment of the person.

Athletics allows us to perceive the truth of our progress: that we are either getting better or we are getting worse. The athlete does not pursue the perfect time, or the perfect season, but to throw better than he did previously, to run faster than she did previously; and to collaborate better with teammates. The emphasis is on getting better, not being perfect, there is no coasting in athletics or in life. This allows the students to see excellence as the pursuit of getting better every day. 

The effort and discipline necessary to be in pursuit of the “better” helps students develop virtue in life. Courage comes from the word meaning “heart”. At Great “Hearts,” we want our athletes to demonstrate courage too. Competitions provide a real opportunity for athletes to demonstrate courage: to fight for something, even when they think all is spent. Competition allows teammates to know they are striving for virtue alongside their classmates, and there is no isolation in the struggle. Competition, where they are defined as winners and losers, gives students the chance to share victories and losses together. To “Encourage” means “to place courage (or heart) into another.” When students “encourage” each other, they share the great heart within them with their peers.