Learning with Sports

Young boys are different in many ways from girls. They tend to mature physically and mentally behind girls. They tend to play in a rough manner, and they tend to apply a different role to sports in their lives than girls.

While all of the above are tendencies, and may or may not be true for your son, sports is probably going to be the rule he will follow if there is one. If you stand out in the parking lot of our school and watch the boys first through eighth grades out playing in the grass, what you won’t observe is a number of boys standing in a group just talking. Instead they are throwing a football, hitting a volleyball, or playing some active game that involves competition. For boys it is their method of relating, seeing how they fit in, making friends, and passing time.

Sports is an integral activity in our school. It is one of our prime opportunities for older men, and dads, to train younger men. Individually and as a team, they learn to fall and pick themselves up again. Practice and hard work can have tangible rewards. Honoring God, or as our culture would say “good sportsmanship,” is encouraged and used with other teams and one’s own teammates. Commitment, patience, friendships, and how to play a game well are other positive aspect to sports.

But learning how to win, is best done by losing a lot. If you lose correctly, you will learn from your mistakes or lack of skills what you need to improve to try and win at the next opportunity. Winning always or winning by great margins creates an attitude of superiority and little motivation to work diligently on individual skills on teamwork.

The teams of my oldest son and I only had two winning seasons in our six years of being a coach and player together. Our first four years always had us being the youngest and smallest team in the league. But with essentially the same group of players for those six years they learned to play as a team, many times not even looking where they were passing the ball, just knowing certain players were going to be at certain spots on the court when they passed the ball.

The fifth year we went 12-5 and the sixth season we won the championship after being down by 24 points at the half and the game winning shot at the buzzer.

But the most enjoyable year I have ever coached was last year with one team not winning a single game and the other holding on to a close final game and the championship. Both teams provided equal enjoyment because both teams improved greatly as individuals and as a team. Learning to play as a team involves a selfless attitude, hard work, and figuring out where you fit in.

Christian schools need to look different than the public model and sports is a part of that difference.

Recently I enjoyed a great conversation with a parent from Bios on sports in Christian schools. It was encouraging for me to hear I was not alone in thinking that winning is what happens when the players honor God in their sport, work hard, play as a team, and are gracious in winning and losing.

Sports can provide an active model to train young men in putting others first. Sacrifice, honor, hard work, and learning to do something well are lifelong skills to carry into a boys culture, jobs, families, and service in churches.