Sports are way more than just a game. They are so much more. Sports are everything we need to know about life, but all wrapped into fun competition. From the time I was four to my senior year of high school, I was always playing sports. I’ve played them all, and they have all meant so much more to me than most people could imagine.
The thing about sports that people do not realize is that it teaches us the life lessons that we often overlook and forget about. They teach athletes to pay attention to detail, because when we do the little things wrong, the big things are bound to fall apart. The little details are often the difference between winning and losing. Look at any of the most penalized teams in football. Their seasons typically do not go so well, and it’s because they don’t do the little things right (Tampa Bay, Buffalo, Oakland, Miami, New Orleans were the most penalized teams in the 2015-2016 season. None of them made the playoffs).
Sports teach us that we sometimes have to depend on other people, even when we don’t want to. Look at LeBron James. The guy has been the most dominant player in basketball for years, and yet his only championships have come when he’s had a good team around him. He has not, and never will, win a championship by starring in a one-man show.
Sports teach us that the only way to get better is through practice and by competing with the best. All the best wrestlers, fighters, and most athletes in general, are a product of countless hours on the mat with a damn good partner.
Sports teach us how to set goals and how to work towards achieving them. Every athlete’s goal is to win his or her respective championship, and every athlete knows how much work it takes to get to the top. You do not just accidently end up on top. It takes countless hours to get there.
Sports teach us that the most important thing in life is our health. We take our health for granted all the time, but I guarantee that any athlete sidelined with an injury would tell you that your health is the greatest gift you will ever be given.
Finally, sports teach us that life is not about winners and losers. Sure, there always is a winner, just as there is always a loser (except in the few rare cases of sports where ties are a legitimate way to end the game), but that’s not what should matter. Sports teach us that it should be an adventure, filled with ups and downs, to get where we are going. Whether we are winners or losers, what sports are really about is having fun. If that’s not relatable to life, then I don’t know what is.
