Life Lessons Through Sport. It’s on our wall. It’s on the back of our shirts. It’s the “why” of Thrive. It means that there is so much more to sport than just the skill. The skill is the bonus, the icing on the cake. The core of the sport is made up of the experiences, the lessons along the way. It’s what an athlete discovers about themselves and the world that lasts long after their time in the sport has ended.
Oftentimes, youth sports are focused on winning, on being the best. Scholarships! Olympics! The purpose and the joy of the sport gets lost in the muddiness of such goals. Every four years only five gymnasts make the Olympic Team, and every year only a handful of athletes earn college scholarships. When parents enroll a child in their first class, most are not thinking about such things. They are thinking that their child has too much energy, needs to learn to be safe when flipping over furniture, or needs to learn how to behave in a class before preschool. Parents can choose an athletic environment to launch their child on a journey to experience the joy of athletics alongside exponential personal growth.
When the mission in an athletic environment is to use sports to teach life lessons, a dynamic is added to both the child’s and the coach’s experiences; it elevates the class from instructional to impactful. These moments might seem small and insignificant to an outsider, but to a coach who is committed to making the sport about more than skills, they are everything. The goal of this approach is to instill confidence and self-discipline, to give children an understanding of how to navigate the world. And then, during times of struggle, a child can draw upon those experiences of success. These victories in athletics result in victories outside the sports environment, creating a lasting positive impact on a child who then grows up to be a coach, leader, or parent themselves. They then share the gift that they once received, Life Lessons Through Sport, with those they are trusted to guide.The positive impact of their youth sports experience had nothing to do with the Olympics or a scholarship.
Life Lessons Through Sport.
It is our “why.”