Youth Sports Research Paper

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Sports today plays a significant role in our day to day lives. Organized sports have become an extremely popular recreational activity for kids. When I look around I see more and more kids playing youth sports and now at a younger age. With the growth in participation parents might ask, how does sport affect the socialization process of young Americans? Some may argue that it has a negative impact and I believe there are some as well but, I feel like the benefits outweigh the bad. I began playing organized basketball at age 7, as my first sports and this is where I began really meeting other kids. I had just moved to the city from a small town with no recreational sports for my age group, so this was the first experience with kids from the …show more content…

When I asked to be put in sports my parents told me that I could not play if started to fall behind in class. This helped me as I grew up and continued sports going into middle school and high school, when the no pass no play rule was enforced. They also made me do my homework before I could even step outside and I could not rush because they always checked. This influenced me to keep my grades up and do all my work on time. It made sure that I kept my priorities straight and they made sure that I would not fall into a stereotype. Growing up I lived in lower income communities with drugs and violence all around me, for kids to adults. Playing sports kept me out of that atmosphere and made sure I was not a product of my environment. My parents felt that I was safe if I was always doing something productive they did not care whether it was in band, chess club or sports, they just wanted me active in something to stay out the streets. Sports was also a way for me to escape that relax and hang out with friends and forget what I had to go home to for a couple more hours. When I got to high school my teammates and I held each other accountable to make sure we did not fall into none of the wrong things or fail. My teammates were the people I could always go to if I needed help or if I could not be at home for any reason. They also had a huge influence in my life we basically did everything together and we all had …show more content…

One obvious thing taught from sports is teamwork, there are not many sports that do not have some form of teamwork. Teaching us how to work together to achieve a common goal also helped deal with people that I did not necessarily like or want to be around. Teamwork is one of the first things I learned, coaches nailed into my head that there is no I in team. It taught me how to care for other and only about myself. I was not used to being all about a team at first so all of this teamwork talk really helped me understand humility and selflessness. I was taught the difference between cocky and confident. The coaches would show me that I needed my team if I wanted to be successful every time that my head would get big. The punishments taught me to respect adults and those who are in an authoritative role. They made sure that I always answered adults with a sir or ma’am. It ended up helping me be able to make decisions on the fly as well. Playing football and basketball I always had to make decisions quickly or it could hurt the team. This helped me be able to operate under stressful situations as I got older, especially when having to do timed test like the SAT and ACT. Playing sports also gave me leadership qualities like gathering people and inspiring them. Even when I did not accept leadership roles I was forced to if I wanted the team to be successful or naturally

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