In the world of sports, high school is where it all begins. It is the best place to begin an athlete’s trek to the pro level, as well as growing into a prosperous and respectful human being. Sports such as football, baseball, soccer, and basketball, as well as smaller sports such as golf, swimming, and volleyball among others, can teach students many life skills that are very important to their maturing and growing up as they continue into either the workforce or college. High school sports are very important to the well-being and maturing of teenagers as it teaches them such values as self-discipline, work ethic, responsibility, self-respect, and teamwork as well as keeping teenagers out of trouble and creates a sense of pride for ones school in both players and non-athletes alike.
It is difficult juggling just school and a job in high school, but for those involved in athletics, another piece is thrown into the mix. When an after-school sport with two hours of practice and games per day is lumped on top of classes that require almost two extra hours of homework plus the six to seven hours at school per day, as well as four or more hours to hold a job, a teenager must learn to handle themselves in a mature and orderly fashion. It is required for a student-athlete to be extremely disciplined to hold the balance beam of all their activities and responsibilities and not let it tip over. As well, high grades are a very important requirement for an athlete to stay on the sports team. This teaches the student responsibility because they must not only balance school and sports, but also earn high enough grades in school to stay involved in sports.
Reed Johnson, a retired employee of 4 different NFL teams, 3 college football teams, and a high school football state championship winner himself, is a very strong supporter of the role that high school sports can play in teenagers and student athletes lives. When asked what he thought of high school sports role in their lives, he said, “Football, as well as any other sport, is just as important as the Debate Team, DECA, Future Business Leaders of America, Chorus, or any other after school activity that students have the possibility of being involved with. In fact, only in sports can the students that aren’t athletes become involved with the event as well.” This is a very important point to understand. High school sports can involve students other than athletes by allowing them to be prideful of there school and their school’s talents, something that cannot be done to the same extent as other activities as Band, Chess Club, and Student Government among others. Though all school activities can be involved in state competitions, none are as important or as influential as sports can be.
When a student is an athlete as well, they have the possibility of going father in life, as well as being much better prepared for the path before them than a student who just does his school work and nothing else. High school athletes are given the opportunity to gain a full-ride to college just by performing well in school while playing sports. This is incredibly beneficial to students who are worse off than the average person because it gives them a chance to become something that maybe no one else in their family had the opportunity of becoming. Also, because of the morals and life-values that involvement in sports teaches, they can become better business and community leaders in the future. Sports teaches such things as team work, which is very important in corporate situations, and self-respect, which can teach the student to value their life, as well as others around them.
In Barrow, Alaska, 30 miles above the Artic Circle, 2006 is the first year football has been offered as a sport to Barrow High School students. When the school systems superintendent Trent Blankenship introduced the sport, most parents and even some of the students thought it was a joke. Nobody knew what football was there, and only few had played it. However, Blankenship thought it was vital to the town’s teenagers who had nothing to do in an area where there is no grass, trees, or any activities for the students to do after school. After oil was found in a nearby bay, the town suddenly had more money than they knew what to do with, and with the influx in cash came many illegal substances. The combination of wealth and no after-school activities left teens with little to do other than drugs. Football is a way to keep the students from becoming just one more number in the prison system, or just one more face in the newspaper’s obituaries. It gives them the opportunity to become something past the path that has already been laid out for them. It gives them the opportunity to become something other than just one more drug-addict, prison inmate, or even death statistic. To them, high school sports will make their future by motivating them and changing them into mature and intelligent and wise individuals.
Through high school sports, students are given the opportunity to become something more than just a run-of-the-mill graduate by learning very important life skills such as discipline, teamwork, responsibility, and pride in one self’s efforts among many other things. They also can be extremely beneficial to those who are less off by providing them with the opportunity to go to college and in process give them the possibility of making their future more prosperous than what would have been expected of a person coming from a poorer home situation. All sports, such as football, volleyball, soccer, golf, softball, and many others are vital to the high school experience. They teach students things that cannot be learned through just classes and homework; they teach students to respect life, and live it well.
Posted by Blair Johnson 
