“Hey kid, stop and look around, today might be the best day of your life.”
The quote you just read is something you might hear me say to kids, especially on those perfect afternoons when the sun is warm, a light breeze drifts across the field, and teammates are laughing together for no reason other than the joy of being there. As adults, we know these moments move by quickly, and with seemingly nothing important happening, it’s understandable why kids don’t stop and appreciate moments like this. Ironically, these are precisely the moments that create our best, permanent memories! They are the memories that define our childhood! As the great Ferris Bueller once said, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in awhile, you could miss it.”
It’s the journey, not the end result
While it’s easy to get caught up in winning games and working toward championships, the youth sport experience is a far more comprehensive experience and much more valuable than that. Kids gain so much from playing youth sports, in fact, it might just be the most developmental thing they do throughout childhood. Learning life skills, problem-solving, being an important part of a group, and learning how to set and achieve goals are just a few of the important experiences kids enjoy while competing, but youth sports are even more than that.
When kids play on a team, they make new friends, learn about similarities and differences, and soon come to understand that when you are on a team, everyone pulls together. And kids laugh — a lot — when they are out on a sports field and living their best days with other kids also growing up and having fun with sports. When you watch a group of kids practicing their sport you have to ask yourself where else do kids have this kind of fun, interactive, shared experience with one another beyond sports? Kids are moving their bodies, laughing, and supporting one another — you don’t witness these things in math class, at church, or during a music recital, but you do see these things happening at most sports fields across America.
When we focus too much on winning that next game/championship, we overlook this amazing time for kids and their formative years. Just ask yourself right now how often you talk about memories from youth sports with your adult friends — the big base hit, the unexpected thunder storm, the touchdown pass in double coverage, and the soccer goal that somehow found the net. Or maybe you talk about the fun bus rides, jokes in the locker room, or trips to get ice cream after the game. What’s striking about these memories is that they’re rarely the ones you expected to keep. Yet, in the end, those simple moments shared with friends often become our most cherished memories of childhood.
Final thoughts
Now it’s your turn! Make sure to go out today and remind kids of how fun these days are, and how fast these days pass. Yes, it really might be one the best day’s of their lives today, and there’s a good chance kids don’t know it — just how you didn’t know that day you huddled in the dugout with teammates laughing while it thunder stormed would be one of your best youth memories. Yes, it really is the process, not the end goal, that is the best part of youth sports, and it’s our job as adults to regularly remind kids of these great times!
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