WHY DO WE PLAY SPORTS?

         WHAT HAPPPENED TO PLAYING SPORTS FOR FUN?

With the fall season around the corner, we look forward to school sports again.  Everyone is practicing to win and excel.  The emphasis to inspire the athlete is:  “Defeat is worse than death, because you have to live with defeat.”    Perhaps we should look at the impact of the sport on your child.  Is winning everything?

Its one thing to be the best golfer, tennis player, student, foot ballplayer that one can be.  Sports can be a healthy avenue to self-knowledge, if the focus is on trying hard and self-actualization. 

It seems recently the whole emphasis is on only outperforming someone else.  This results in frustration rather than satisfaction, even for the star athlete. 

There will always be a super opponent lying in the wait.  If winning is everything, it doesn’t really matter whether your child athlete performs well or his opponent played badly.  It is a hollow victory when he wins because his opponent didn’t play his best.

As doctors, we think in terms of preventing and treating physical injuries that have physical causes.  Sometimes we must pay attention to other signs.

 

Some athletes feels that the only thing that counts is winning, being perfect, and constantly bettering his own record.  Such a person is setting himself up for trouble.

An athlete who seems completely to have lost sight of fun in sports can rob his life of joy and can lead to overtraining and injury, or even to despair and suicide.

COACHES AND PARENTS :  "LETS KEEP FUN IN SPORTS.  IT DOEN'T REALLY MATTER WHETHER YOU WIN OR LOSE, ITS HOW YOU PLAY THE GAME!"

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