Four-Minute Philosopher

Can a man learn anything about life from sport? One notable answer comes from famed Miler Roger Bannister, first to run a faster-than-four-minute mile (3:59.4) and now house physician at London's St. Mary's Hospital. Writes Dr. Bannister, 25, in the BBC magazine, The Listener: "My running may have given me a limited pedestrian philosophy, but it has taught me one thing: the need to make decisions. Sooner or later in sport we run up against situations which are too big for us to manage. In real life we can dodge them. We can play hide-and-seek with reality . . . In sport we cannot. It shakes our roots with its confusing pattern of success and failure . . . Quick decisions are needed. As a result, sport leads to the most remarkable self-discovery of our limitations as well as our abilities. It was sport that . . . made it easier for me to think about the parallel stress that faces us in real life."

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