Games & Sports have been a vital component of JNVs to ensure all round development of students. The importance of sports and games in schools encompasses more than just the benefit of physical activity. It not only helps to improve academic performance but it is also a powerful tool for promoting leadership, team work skills and social cohesion. Games and Sports are encouraged in JNVs to develop fitness, psychomotor skills and fine tune motorskills with coordination, movement, strength, dexterity, grace, speed skills and to promote the spirit of cooperation and sportsman. Apart from the same, young talents are identified at an early stage and are helped to excel in their chosen field by specialized coaching. Further, Games and Sports also find healthy outlets for energy. This promotes a good rapport among students, teachers, parents and administration and show case talents of students for inspiration of others. Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti organises various sports and games activities at school level, cluster level, Regional Level and National Level every year. Further Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti is a state under School Games Federation of India (SGFI) and Navodaya National teams compete with other state teams in SGFI competitions.
Sportsmanship is an attitude that strives for fair play, courtesy toward teammates and opponents, ethical behaviour and integrity, and grace in victory or defeat.[21][22][23] Sportsmanship expresses an aspiration or ethos that the activity will be enjoyed for its own sake. The well-known sentiment by sports journalist Grantland Rice, that it is "not that you won or lost but how you played the game", and the modern Olympic creed expressed by its founder Pierre de Coubertin: "The most important thing... is not winning but taking part" are typical expressions of this sentiment