Ever since the early age of five, I have participated in sports. Sports were a bigger part of my childhood than anything, even school. I never got the lecture, “sports are about life lessons” from my parents. But I do know people who advocate for youth sports because they believe that participation in them teaches valuable lessons and even improves academic grades. As a future teacher and, most likely, a future coach as well, I am very intrigued by the idea of advocating sports for my students so that they can benefit both inside and outside the classroom through involvement in sports. Sports are a huge part of the academic community, as “athletic participation is still the single most popular school-sponsored extracurricular activity, regardless of race, ethnicity, or gender” in the United States (Miller, 2005, p.179). Such a huge part of the academic community should not be ignored; in fact, if possible, sports should be used to better accomplish student achievement.
I started my research with what I knew about my own participation in sports: it improved my physical fitness, my ability to work with others, my willingness to listen to mentors, my ability to be unselfish, my ability to work through adversity and my overall work ethic. Looking back on my own adolescent sports experience, I realized that I had learned much more than I knew at the time and supposed that there are probably other people who received even greater academic and life-related advantages because of sports participation. I decided to focus my research on the academic benefits that sports can have on adolescents. I didn’t just want opinions though, I wanted statistical evidence, gathered through studies, that showed the benefits (if any existed) that sports has on academics. To find these results, I kept my research focused mostly on Academic Journals and Periodicals found through the NAU Cline Library Database, with a few videos from reputable sources, and an article from the Lance Armstrong Foundation.
What my research found was two-fold: 1) students learn many lessons from sports participation, and 2) the benefits that sports have on academics are seen in many students from every background (DeMeulenaere, 2010, p. 134). In fact, there are six known ways that “student involvement in sports promoted student success: structuring schedules, creating incentives, building confidence, developing positive adult and peer role models, and its role in getting students to develop future aspirations” (DeMeulenaere, 127).
At the very basic level, student athletes must maintain a certain GPA (usually 2.5) in order to be eligible to play sports. Though some athletes are seen as just skating by when they achieve the bare minimum, “by concentrating their efforts on becoming eligible to play by doing well in class, students [actually] learn to focus their mind on the subject matter” (Silverman, 2011). And most student-athletes do not just achieve the bare minimum—they exceed. In fact, “academic achievement of secondary student athletes is generally higher than their non-athletic counterparts and the difference between the two increases proportionately with increases in athletic participation” (Byrd, 1991, p.172). Statistically, “female athletes report the highest GPAs and male non-athletes report the lowest” in secondary classrooms (Miller, 181).
It has been said that participation in sports does not only benefit academics, but “can have beneficial effects on issues such as attendance, attitude towards school and grade consistency” as well (Byrd, 175). Playing on a sports team gives many kids reasons to complete their homework, behave in school and attend school every day. On top of that, “sport involvement is an important activity that has the potential for reducing at-risk behavior and enhancing development in adolescents” (Lucas, 2002). Students not only become higher achieving students when they participate in sports, but they become more well rounded people as a result.
Through my research, I learned and reaffirmed my belief that adolescent sports participation is a greatly beneficial extra-curricular activity for students to be involved in. Student athletes have the “opportunity to develop relationships with caring adults as coaches. Research consistently credits the role of coaches in the higher achievement of student-athletes” (DeMeulenaere, 132). There are many examples of students becoming better students as well as better people as a result of sports participation. This is a very important idea to me as I look to encourage my students to become involved in sports or other extracurricular activities that are as beneficial to them as sports are.
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