My First Year Old Boys Are Playing Baseball, Football, And All The Other Sports

When school was out, I would play with my friends in the neighborhood. These were kids who were not my age- some were older, and some were younger. We all had one thing in common, though- we wanted to have fun! We would throw sponge balls at the pool, play basketball at the park, or try out new videogames at my house. These were always good times.

I know that he’s always watching me now. I was living life just as normally as the other 10 year old. That was until my grandpa had been acting up in the following weeks of my 11th birthday, he was not being his normal self. He underwent a CT scan in early December, and it revealed a tumor on his brain. He underwent surgery to remove the tumor and lost his beautiful, prized hair. Not many men could grow hair like he could. He was recovering well from surgery, and according to the doctors, he would have 6-12 months to live. All was well I was until I was in Fort Wayne, Indiana for a hockey tournament with my PeeWee A team 6 weeks later. My father had received a call from my mother, who was my grandpa’s daughter. She told him that a tumor had regrown behind one of his eyes, and it was the size of a softball. They had no choice but to put him on life support because the tumor rendered him brain dead, and let everyone say their goodbyes. “Feed the good wolf,” was something he would always say to us kids. He loved that saying. He lived by it. I lost the man I wanted (and still strive to) be like. He was the perfect grandfather, and although his life was taken from him at the age of 63 by some horrible disease, he lived a full life. On the dark, candle lit night of January 14th, 2012, I realized how precious life is, and I chose to “Live Like Larry.”

At the age of ten I was the most energetic, go-lucky, confident girl. I excelled at my beloved sport, soccer. I had been playing since I was just a mere five years old, far longer than the other girls. Playing so long had helped me be at a higher level of skill than most of the other players on my team.

“See you a practice!” is a phrase that most people will say to their friends throughout childhood. Thirty-six million children in the United States play a sport. That is over half the children in the United States. However, even with that statistic, some children are still inside all day watching television or playing video games. Many parents do not enroll their children in a sport because they believe it will result in injury, or the child is going to feel left out. Some even believe that their child will be looked down upon if they are not as good as everyone else. They believe that if the child has more time on schoolwork it will raise their grades. But most children love to play outside and learn new sports. It is a part of a child’s nature to run around and have fun. Only some parents realize that children who play a sport can have more discipline than those who don’t. Sports can also give children experience working with others as a team as well as confidence in themselves. Children and teens who play sports are more likely to have higher confidence, be more disciplined, and work better with others.

The year was 1999 when we moved to Colorado from New Mexico. I was just a year old. My father recalls searching restlessly day and night to help support me and my mother. Coming to a new state was difficult; moving from basement to basement was their only option. Fortunately, a little after our arrival, my father found a job working construction and we were able to get a small apartment.Although small, it was still fulfilling in every way. Money was scarce at the time, as well as food. As he talks, he mentions a weekend night when he and I were spending some time together in the living room. I was a year old, and I was hungry. I decided to go to the kitchen and find some milk. When I made it to the kitchen, I opened the fridge. My father says,

Soccer led to days sitting in the park talking about our futures, bike rides to the beach, and nights of mischief. Around the same time I started playing and watching basketball. I remember watching Kobe Bryant play in the 2009 NBA Finals against the Boston Celtics and thinking I want to try that move, hoist a trophy, have a crowd cheer for me. There has always been a sense of energy I got from playing in front of people which can be attributed to my competitiveness. Regardless, the only people that I cared about watching me were my parents. My father was always working and my mother also working among taking care of my younger sisters and I. That is until my championship game with the boys and girls club in 6th grade. I vividly remember my dad waving to me as we started the game and although we lost I was never happier. Basketball gave me a reason to smile. There were countless nights of trash talk and one on one games with people who were my rivals, rivals that are now my closest

It’s been debated that having kids participate in sports can be either a positive or negative factor in a child’s development. Is participating in sports a positive outcome in a youth’s development? Through my own personal experience and through the research that I have conducted I believe that participating in sports is a true benefit to a child’s development. Participating in sports can contribute to a healthy individual, developing problem-solving skills, social interaction, promotes following direction and rules, goal setting and creating plans, promotes self-esteem, reduces stress, helps academic success, and a higher quality of life.

The days we were at home we would play outside or help my dad with fixing

Participation in organized sports can provide an opportunity for young people to increase their physical activity and cognitive social skills. But, when the demands and expectations of organized sports exceed the maturation and readiness of the young athlete, the positive aspects of participation can be negated. It can be noted, that parent or adult involvement can influence the degree to which participation in organized sports is a positive experience.

Spring baseball ended up not being enough after my second year in the sport. Eventually, I began playing in the spring and in a fall league. I did this for a couple years, until I was nine. There were a lot of my friends who were really good at baseball who began joining travel ball teams and playing baseball beginning in the spring and playing through the summer and some of the fall. That sounded like so much fun and I was jealous that I wasn’t on one of these teams. My dad was originally opposed to the idea because tournaments were on weekends and he didn’t want us missing

You're sitting in the stands, watching your child play football, when suddenly another player swings in from your child's blindside for a devastating hit to the head. Later in the emergency room, a doctor gives you the news you were worried about; your child has a concussion. Brain injuries, specifically concussions, have come to the surface of most contact sports and these issues have many parents asking, 'should my child be playing dangerous sports?'

It was hard, but very fun. There was always something going on, and I played three sports at the time: baseball, football, and ice hockey. I also have a love of cars, which flourished in my environment. My parents owned old and beat-up cars, and no one else in my family even took an interest in them.

I spent a lot of time with Grandpa Ron, Isaac and I both did. When Isaac and I attended Jacobs Primary school, he dropped us off at the bus stop for our first day of 1st and 2nd grade. He waited in the what is now the Prestige, Painting & General Contracting parking lot until we had gotten on the bus and he’d wave at us until we couldn't see him anymore. Every day he would ask me how I was doing in school, me being a 1st grader I always had very important things to tell him, I told him all my struggles and at the end of the day the only thing that he seemed to remember was how I was behind in my “letters packet”. At the end of the school day he would be in the line of cars with his big red pick-up truck to pick us up from school. We would go back to his house and immediately sit down at the counter because we knew exactly what time it was, snack time.

At nine years old my brother began playing travel baseball. Watching baseball in the summer heat for hours on end arouse something in me. I was only seven years old, but I knew I wanted to find the passion for something like what my brother had for baseball. I remember one evening when me and my brother were sitting on our lawn after dinner talking. The sun had just set, and the sky was still pastel pink and orange.

Sports can be a fantastic activity for children from kindergarten to high school to get involved in. They allow children an outing for physical activity, along with the enjoyment of playing with friends. However, picture a coach that is yelling at his players, not teaching properly, and worries more about winning than the love of the game. That is an example of poor coaching. .Each year twenty to forty million children participate in athletic programs across America (Smith et al., 1995; Conroy & Coatsworth, 2004). Unfortunately, it is without certainty that a significant amount of those children will have at least one bad coaching experience. They could even fall into the terrible situation in which they spend years with a poor coaching