The purpose of this article is to examine why and how sport coaches can play an important role in promoting citizenship and democratic character. As microcommunities, sport teams may provide potent venues for learning about the rights and responsibilities of belonging to social organizations; within teams, participants can practice the democratic skills of cooperation, deliberation, and decision making. We begin by examining key foundational principles of democracy and identify the qualities of character that are needed to support them. We then discuss the civic virtues of respectfulness, responsibility, and autonomy, and examine how these specific virtues relate to sport experiences. We suggest that if sports are to develop civic character appropriate for a democratic society, sport programs must become more democratic and the competitive process must itself be conceptualized as a form of social cooperation. Finally, we discuss how coaches can foster the three virtues at the heart of democratic citizenship.