Lifelong Benefits of Childhood Sports

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At age four, I started my first sport, soccer. From the very first practice, I was simply hooked to the new responsibility to show up at practice every Tuesday and a game every Saturday for my new Blue Valley Recreation team. I had so much fun with my soon-to-be kindergarten classmates! As I grew, I joined more and more sports like softball and dance classes, and I would do anything to get outside and play some football or tag with my family. From the time I was four until now, my love for sports and exercise has only multiplied and multiplied. Apart from the love of playing, I feel I may have gained something more from playing sports all these years. Though I was not entirely certain as to what or why I benefited from playing sports so long, I knew I had some attributes that many other non-athletes did not.

As I contemplated further, I considered my current persona; outgoing and sociable, relatively smart with a willingness to work and learn, respectful and obedient towards superiors, and rarely sick, with a strong and healthy body and the will-power to keep it so by exercising and refusing to take part in drinking or drugs. Could I have developed these and other attributes by being an athlete since an early age? Could something as simple as a game I love to play affect my life for the better?

I had to find out. Jim Thompson, author of Positive Coaching explained, “It is exactly because of the symbolic meaning inherent in youth sports, and the pressures that children choose, or are coerced, to face on the playing field or the gymnasium that an

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incredible opportunity arises to teach positive lessons about life,” (Cox 2). In fact, different research, studies, and surveys suggest that it is true that ...

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