Let the Best One Win: Reflections of Friendship and Competition – Prof. Michael Krom

Dec 30, 2025

Prof. Michael Krom, a philosophy professor at Saint Vincent College and expert in Thomistic thought, dives into the profound relationship between sports, friendship, and virtue. He discusses how athletic rivalry can enhance genuine friendships and moral character. Krom critiques the pitfalls of competition driven by ego and highlights how virtues like prudence and teamwork shape societies through sport. He also explores the ethical questions surrounding violent sports and the philosophy of play, linking it to deeper notions of contemplation and joy.

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INSIGHT

Sports Mirror Divine Communion

Sports reflect God's activity and can sanctify our relationships when rooted in communion rather than ego.
Saying “let the best one win” accepts loss and trains us to be gracious and give God the glory.

INSIGHT

Physical Skill Isn’t Moral Virtue

Bodily perfections like strength or skill are virtues only by analogy and don't perfect the soul.
True moral virtue requires reason directing appetites and actions, not mere physical excellence.

INSIGHT

Perfection Can Oppose Reason

A power perfected contrary to reason (e.g., great drinking ability) isn't a human virtue.
Perfection of a lower power can oppose moral reason and thus be morally disordered.

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Prof. Michael Krom explores how athletic rivalry, when rooted in justice and love of the good, can deepen genuine friendship, build virtue, and lead toward a contemplative vision of life.

This lecture was given on November 13th, 2025, at Indiana University.

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About the Speakers:

Michael Krom started reading Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae shortly after his conversion at the end of college. Upon learning about Flannery O’Connor’s “hillbilly Thomist” habit of reading Aquinas every night, he started studying two articles a day and completed the Summa while in graduate school at Emory University. As a professor at Saint Vincent College, he saw the urgent need for collegians and seminarians to receive a solid foundation in Aquinas’s philosophical theology. In 2020, he published Justice and Charity: An Introduction to Aquinas’s Moral, Economic, and Political Thought (Baker Academic Press), and teaches a Thomistic philosophy course each fall. In addition to continuing work on the moral, economic, and political topics covered in the book, his current research is on the influence of monastic spirituality on Aquinas; he is working on a monograph tentatively entitled Aquinas Among the Benedictines.

Keywords: Athletic Excellence and Virtue, Competition and Friendship, Contemplation and Sport, Desire for the Good, Let the Best One Win, Sportsmanship and Justice, Virtue and Human Flourishing, Vocation and Play, Workaholism and Fanaticism, Wrestling with Rivalry