Sport Society & Me

From the first time I was able to walk I was interested in playing sports. Baseball, Basketball, and Football consumed my life from day one. I have always been extremely interested in sports and have been fortunate enough to still be furthering my Football career here at CU. While I started out playing soccer, my interest in baseball and basketball escalated quickly. However, people noticed tendencies in the way I played those and continuously told my parents that they needed to get me in football because I posessed the qualities that would make me a natural. My parents nagged me, and i fought back just as persistently. I told them that I'm not a football player and never would be. I couldn't have been more wrong. From the time I started football in 6th grade, it has been my passion and still to this day consumes a good portion of my time and thoughts. I have gotten to experience the commitment that playing a sport at a division 1 level takes and that there are truly countless sacrifices associated with  participation at this level.

For me, the lessons learned through sports have been far more valuable than anything I have learned thus far. While I am very grateful for the opportunity to get an education, you cannot learn about teamwork, dedication, commitment, sacrifice, time management, and hard work in a classroom the same way you can in sports. While there are still some negative outcomes that can come through sports as  a result of the sports ethic, the vast majority of its virtues are very valuable. 

If monetary value is a true sign of the values Americans hold dear, than high profile sports like Baseball, Football, and basketball are at the top of that value. The celebrity status of the athletes who partake in these sports shows the standard the American people hold them to. Athletes are seem as an equivalent to Gods by some, and are truly held as the pinnacle of American society. Whether or not all athletes should be viewed as the role models we make them out to be is a topic for another discussion. I have noticed an interesting shift of values in American sports that has taken the value we place on winning at the professional level, and slowly shifted it down to younger and younger groups. An interesting new show recently appeared on the Esquire Network called "Friday Night Tykes". The show is a documentary on youth football in texas, the mecca of the football world, and it expresses the coaches obsession with winning at all costs and throwing out the past methods of giving all kids at young ages an equal shot to play and have fun.