It"s not difficult to understand our desire for athletes to be heroes. On the surface, at least, athletes display a vital and indomitable spirit; they are gloriously alive【C1】______their bodies. And sports do allow us to 【C2】______acts that can legitimately be described as【C3】______, thrilling, beautiful, even noble. In a (n)【C4】______ complicated and disorderly world, sports are still an arena in which we can regularly witness a certain kind of 【C5】______. Yet there" s something of a【C6】______here, for the very qualities a society【C7】______to seek in its heroes— selflessness,【C8】______consciousness, and the like—are precisely the【C9】______of those which are needed to【C10】______a talented but otherwise unremarkable neighborhood kid into a Michael Jordan. To become a star athlete, you have to have an extremely competitive【C11】______and you have to be totally focused on the development of your own physical skills. These qualities【C12】______well make a great athlete,【C13】______they don" t necessarily make a great person. On top of this, our society reinforces these【C14】______by the system it has created to produce athletes a system characterized by【C15】______responsibility and enormous privilege. The athletes themselves suffer the【C16】______of this system. Trained to measure themselves perpetually 【C17】______ the achievements of those around them, many young athletes develop a sense of sociologist Walter Schafer has【C18】______ "conditional self-worth". They learn very quickly that they will be accepted by the important figures in their lives—parents, coaches and peers as long as they are【C19】______as "winner". Unfortunately they become【C20】______and behave as if their athletic success will last forever.

【C8】

A．social
B．communal
C．huge
D．important