Blood, Sweat, and Snacktime!!!

Playing sports at an early age has positives for human growth and development.

We celebrate sports everyday. Sports is something that yields pride on many different levels. From cities, states, regions and even countries, we champion the very people that play and look up to them as roll models for there work on the field and sometimes off. I recently went to my first Jacksonville Jaguars game with my son and we had a blast! Watching my son’s face as he watches these professionals throw, tackle, and run with inhuman athleticism made his eyes sparkle as if the Christmas tree was erected early on a hot Florida Sunday. But it got me to think as to how watching these guys would impact my son and what was the journey that these players had to endure on their way to playing professional sports. Through searching for an answer, I came across the answer that I was looking for. Playing sports at an early age can promote positive results on and off a field.

According to leaguenetwork.com, there are 8 benefits that helps children’s human growth and develop when it comes to playing organized sports. Self-esteem, exercise, leadership skills, teamwork, building relationships, improved communication, discipline, and time management. As intriguing as that’s sounds, these and still just words on a screen so satisfaction was not met. I knew I had to get answers from more that just literal resources and what better way to get the answers than from people that are in charge of organizing and spectating children interacting with each other.

I started looking for my answer in Oakleaf Plantation Park. Every Saturday kids from all over the Orange Park area come out and play organized sports like flag football and soccer sponsored by i90 Sports. My son plays flag football and I can already see the results in him, but I needed to get answers from the coach and his family. Michael and Tabitha Newman’s son, Tucker, has been playing organized flag football for over a year.

So that told me what I needed for “on the field”, but I needed to find out how sports impacted kids “off the field”. Specifically, and more importantly, in the classroom. I Interviewed Auche’ Cooper-Irwin, a kindergarten teacher at North Florida Educational Institute, who has the task of molding young minds in the classroom. Ms. Cooper-Irwin has been a cheer leading coach for over 5 years and has watched and molded young boys and girls in and out of the classroom. The conversation touched on the confidence level of young kids and how sports to make improve a child’s mental state of mind, especially in dealing with their confidence. She stated that kids learn that value of teamwork and concepts of accountability.

The answer I found I deemed to be satisfactory. As a parent, these are things that you would want to hear. Personally, my son has improved his communication skills and more importantly, he has made friends to grow up and make memories with. So if you ask me, the memories are priceless.