My Competitive Sports Argument Essay

Nora Wiley- Schwartz                                                                                               711

            More people are stopping their children from playing competitive sports every day because kids can get hurt. But there are ways to prevent that, and competitive sports prepare you for the life you have ahead of you and keep you healthy. Without competitive sports, your kid could be one of those kids that sits inside all day, not being very active, and not knowing what the world outside of their house is like. Do you really want that? This is why kids should play competitive sports.

            Playing competitive sports prepares your kids for the life they have ahead of them. This is very important. In ‘Competitive Sports: Helping Kids Play It Cool’, the text says, “sports prepare the body to rise to a challenge with focus, strength, stamina, and heightened awareness.” This tells us some important qualities that help you become a stronger person. Another quote from ‘Competitive Sports: Helping Kids Play It Cool’ says: “playing sports can impart many wonderful life lessons--valuing teamwork, overcoming challenges, controlling emotions, and taking pride in accomplishments.” This tells us how competitive sports help kids learn basic good qualities for life. For example, one of these qualities is controlling your emotions. Most kids learn to not have a fit on the field in the middle of the game because the game must go on. Kids will start doing this in their regular life as well. This is a great example of just how valuable it is to play competitive sports. If everyone experienced this, we would all be much more prepared for the life ahead of us.

            Playing competitive sports helps you stay healthy. Without competitive sports many more kids would be overweight in America. Kobe Bryant, an NBA champion says, “You need to get out there and compete because it’s going to decrease your chance of having diabetes 30-40 years from now.” This is meaningful because nobody wants to get diabetes when they’re older, I sure don’t. ScienceDaily, a local news paper states that “Students in grades seven and eight were asked to fill in a survey, and boys were 15 times more likely and girls were 30 times more likely to describe their health as fair/poor when not playing on a sports team.” This evidence shows how playing sports impacts kids a lot when it comes to staying fit. Sports have always kept my brother and me healthy as we are growing up.

            Even though competitive sports help you in the long run, many think that sports are much too dangerous.  The NY Daily News says “Each year in the U.S. an average of a dozen high school and college football players die during practices and games, according to a new study that finds heart conditions, heat and other non-traumatic causes of death are twice as common as injury-related ones.” Many parents are resigning their kids from sports because of the hard hits, the collisions, the falls that all add up. But there are many ways to prevent those life threatening conditions. For example, more padding and gear such as appropriate helmets can be applied. Many kids don’t tell their coaches when they are not OK.  They answer with a simple “I’m fine”, and think they are showing how brave they are. But what really shows that they are brave is saying when they are really hurt, and cannot play. In Crave Competition: Its Good For You, it states, “some say competition is toxic. They are not wrong. Life is toxic.” This is very true. We need to use sports as a training ground in order to know how to deal with the challenges that are coming ahead of us.

            To conclude, we should all play competitive sports because without it, we may not be mentally and physically prepared for our own lives. We need to step up to the plate (sometimes literally) and get out onto that field. You’re not “protecting” your kid by keeping them in. Let’s start today.

Works Cited

"Average 12 High School and College Football Players Die Each Year, Study Says." NY Daily News. Reuters, 6 Apr. 2013. Web. Jan. 2015. <http://www.nydailynews.com/>.

"Competitive Sports: Helping Kids Play It Cool." KidsHealth. Ed. Michelle New. The Nemours Foundation, Mar. 2011. Web. Jan. 2015. <http://kidshealth.org/>.

De Sena, Joseph. "Crave Competition, It's Good for You: Column." USA Today. USA Today, 12 Oct. 2013. Web. Jan. 2015. <http://usat.ly/1awXiFC>.

Shelburne, Ramona. "Kobe Bryant Says Healthy Competition Key in Youth Sports." ESPN Los Angeles. ESPN Internet Ventures, 14 Jan. 2014. Web. Jan. 2015. <http://ESPBLosAngeles.com>.

"Young Teens Who Play Sports Feel Healthier and Happier about Life." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 14 Oct. 2010. Web. Jan. 2015. <http://www.sciencedaily.com/>.