"Football is like life - it requires perseverance, self-denial, hard work, sacrifice, dedication and respect for authority."- Vince Lombardi. Football is a huge part of my life. It doesn’t only teach me, but it teaches everyone about things in life whether they realize it or not. The game of football teaches us how to persevere, because when the going gets tough in a game or season no matter how many times you may fail you must persevere and do the best you can.

The game also teaches us about hard work. You can be the most talented kid on the team but if you don’t work hard then you will get beat by somebody less talented than you 9 out of 10 times just because that kid works harder than you do. No matter who you are or where you want to go in life you have to work hard to be just that little bit better than the person you are competing with whether it be in a game or for a job.

Sacrifice is a big part of the game and of life. You need to be willing to sacrifice everything you have for your brothers in football, and in life you need to be willing to sacrifice everything you have for your family. In football and in life you need to be dedicated. On the field you need to be dedicated to the game and to your teammates, for if they see you are not dedicated to what you are doing then they will lose confidence in you. In life you need to be dedicated, because if you are not dedicated to a job that you are doing then you probably won’t do as well of a job as someone who is dedicated to what they do for a living.

The game of football also teaches us about teamwork. In football your team is only as strong as the weakest link. That is a true statement, because if you don’t work as a team to make everyone better, even the weakest person, then you have accomplished nothing. In life it doesn’t matter what you do everybody needs to be on the same page and work together to get something done well and correctly.

Football teaches us about how important family is in life. It doesn’t matter if you are enemies in school or outside of school, because once you put your pads and cleats on preparing yourself to step onto the field a bond is created between you and you become brothers. You know in the game of football that once you become brothers and turn into a family than it is extremely difficult to stop you.

You also know that you can go to your brother with anything because you are family and family helps each other through the hard times and count on him to work his but off for you when things are tough on the field. It is the same way in life. You need to be able to count on your family to be there for you through everything good or bad. Family after God is the most important thing in life and so many people in this world just miss it. I think football is a great way to learn how to become better in a family.

As you can see football teaches you about many aspects of life because it’s not just a game. It is preparation for life because no matter how much us football players don’t want to admit it, we won’t be able to play the game forever and at some point in time it will end for us.

Some players I know don’t realize that this game teaches you great things that you can use after you are done playing it, so they don’t take advantage of the things that they learn in football. I hope that every football player realizes what the game really does for them, because if they don’t then they are really missing out.