The Love of High School Sports

Recently I read an article entitled “Why I Love High School Sports” by John O’Sullivan the Founder and CEO of Changing the Game Project whose mission is to ensure that “we return youth sports to our children, and put the “play” back in “play ball”.  This article resonated with me as while reading it I was brought back to my High School playing days and the thoughts of my final High School soccer games long ago.  In the article Mr. O’Sullivan talks about the joy of watching his sons team qualify for the state tournament in their final game by overcoming a two-goal deficit in the final ten minutes only to be eliminated in next game by losing 3-0.  He talks about how his son choked up and said, “I just can’t believe that 12 years of soccer has now come to an end”.  Mr. O’Sullivan goes on to talk about his feelings seeing his sons friends, many of them who he coached, deal with defeat.  He stated how he looked around and saw many of his sons friends, who drove 3 hours, to watch the playoff game, and thought to himself “this is what its all about.  That’s why I love school sports.”

While reading the article I thought back to my last High School soccer game…a close loss in the State Sectional Final game.  It was a cold windy November day, and we had our chances to tie the game at the end.  My lasting memory of the game is that in the last 3 minutes of the game we barraged the goalie with what seemed like a ton of shots and we hit everything but the back of the net and this was about a week after we lost in the County Finals, 1-0 in another game that we had our chances but just could not convert.  So, within a week, two close losses ended my/our High School soccer careers and in a blink of an eye the sport that I love and played for 10 years was over.  I honestly cannot say after so many years if any of my High School teammates continued on and played soccer in college, I know my official soccer “career” ended with those two games and except for playing intermural soccer in college I was done with my playing career.

I have often thought High School sports is the purest form of sports.  As I have written before, the percentage of children that go on to play college sports, at any level, is small and those that go on to play professional sports is even smaller so in my humble opinion this leaves High School Sports as the purest forms of sports.  Most children play High School sports

·      to develop physical skills

·      to build teamwork and communication skills

·      to promote discipline and hard work

·      to enhance mental health and well-being

·      to develop leadership skills

·      to build confidence and self-esteem

·      to create lifelong friendships

·      to learn valuable life lessons

·      to improve academic performance and finally,

·      to have fun and enjoy the experience.   

In my opinion, one reason left off the list is simply to play a sport with their friends. Mr. O’Sullivan stated he was “glad that my children played high school sports.” And that he was “so glad that they didn’t leave for club sports that discouraged them from representing their school and playing in front of their friends.”  This also resonated with me because some of the best moments in my High School sports career was wearing the “jersey” with my High School’s name on the front and playing in front of my family and friends and bringing home a “big win.”  I can remember busloads of classmates coming to our state tournament games to cheer us on (now I am pretty sure that a handful, a big handful of my classmates just came to the games to get out of school early, but nonetheless, they were there and rooting for us….LOL).

A recent article by Jennifer Williams of FOX 5 NY Sports talks about former Jet center Nick Mangold coaching at Delbarton High School in New Jersey and in the article, Mangold acknowledges the difference between professional and high school football.  He says “when you spend time in the NFL you kind of get into the mode where it’s very businesslike and just a job, but coming back to high school, I think this is the last pure form of football.  You get to really enjoy just how much fun the game is – playing for your school.”  Kudos to Mr. Mangold who in my opinion hit the nail right on the head.  High school is the purest form of sport, and we need to work hard to keep it that way.  While I understand the lure of playing for club/select teams there I feel that there is NOTHING better than representing your school in an athletic event and I certainly hope that high school sports continue, and parents realize the value of them.