You may have read that title and thought, 'there's no way', but there is. I cannot even begin to list all the things that I learned playing sports growing up. I learned so many valuable lessons and am so grateful for having the opportunity to take part in athletics as a child.

Playing sports teaches you how to communicate with others. You must talk and communicate with your teammates during practices and games. Learning how to speak up and talk to your teammates carries over into every aspect of your day to day life. Playing sports, you will have to talk with your coach and sometimes even the refs. Learning how to talk to these adults who are leaders and mentors to them, is really beneficial.

Playing sports also teaches you what it means to be a part of a team. You live, eat and breathe the sport, together, as a unit. You learn to ride with the teams ups and downs. Players don't lose games, teams lose games. You win and lose as one. This takes a lot of teamwork and collaboration. As you grow older, you will have to learn to work with all different kinds of people. You will have to tackle tasks together, rather than individually. The skills you learned working with your teammates with help you when you work with others.

Playing sports teaches you time management. You have to squeeze school, practice, dinner and homework in a day, but you also have to get enough sleep. When you are on your own in college you will have to make sure that what needs to get done each day gets done. Your time management skills from playing sports with school growing up, will carry over and you will know how to manage your time.

Playing sports teaches you discipline. You must attend every practice, tournament and game. This teaches you to prioritize what is important to you. You do what you need to do because you know your teammates are depending on you. Your teachers, future bosses and government will tell you what to do and you have to know that they are asking you to do these things for a reason and to do them.

Playing sports teaches you to have a good work ethic. You understand what it takes to be great. Countless of hours of hard work will help you improve at what you love. You learn not to give up and to continue to try not matter how many times you fail. Mistakes will lead to corrections and perfections. Most chances are you will have to try things multiple times in life to start to get good at them. You will be used to trying again and again until you succeed. This familiar drive will take you far in life.

Playing sports teaches you to have respect. You respect your sport, coaches, trainers, referees, teammates and competition. You don't talk back, or disrespect your coach or teammates, so why would you treat anyone else with any less respect. People deserve to be treated with respect and you understand this. You will also know that being respectful of other people makes them more respectful of you.

Playing sports teaches you how to collaborate with others. You will collaborate with your coach and teammates to create better plays and to help each other improve. It takes a lot of time and patience but you all manage to always create something great together. When you have to do group projects in school or need to collaborate with others at work, you will go into it confident because you learned how to work with others in a productive manner.

Playing sports also teaches you perseverance. I remember when I started playing volleyball at a new school in 7th grade. I tried out with probably 40 other girls. I ended up making the team. The hard thing was that I didn't know anyone on my team and they all played club volleyball together. I immediately felt like the odd one out. Despite sitting alone on all the bus rides to our games and feeling out of the loop because I didn't know their inside jokes, I stayed on the team and ended up playing again the next year. I didn't let it ruin my love and passion for the game.

I have learned so much from playing sports. I learned about the game, myself and the world. As cheesy as it sounds, I wouldn't be me if I hadn't and I am so glad I did.