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Parks & Rec Business
| Sports Spotlight First in a five-part series The Power of Sports 101 How to educate the parents and decision-makers in your community about the power of sports as an educational opportunity, not a career By Fred Engh Let’s face it. All of us parks and recreation professionals can do a better job of selling the general public on the inherent value of sports as an educational opportunity as opposed to an avocation. Sure, we’ve done a great job of convincing the local taxpayers to pay for thousands of ball fields, courts, and pools in our communities, and we’ve done an equally excellent job of providing active recreation for all the kids in the community regardless of class, race or wealth, but when we stop and take a good, hard look at what actually takes place in all our wonderful facilities, we often realize something is missing. Instead of positive, character-building programs, most of our kids are running, catching and kicking in programs designed to mirror professional sports. Somehow, we have failed to convince the millions of parents out there that sports are, essentially, an outdoor classroom--one that can reinforce the lessons learned in our school classrooms. The Solution As with most problems, the solution is to shine as bright a light on the problem as possible. In this case, that means education first and then aggressive communication. To help fight the battle in your hometown, I’m going to offer a crash course on The Power of Sports 101. Course Syllabus Overall Value of Sports This course will cover the many life-skill educational opportunities available in youth sports and highlight ways you can ensure they are taught and learned by your kids. Life-skill lessons include: perseverance, teamwork, sportsmanship and managing/developing peer relationships. Health Youth sports programs offer a compelling and effective tool to teach, prevent, and eventually solve the childhood obesity epidemic that has a stranglehold on kids in many parts of this country and the world. This course will highlight effective techniques for using sports to teach and encourage common-sense diet and exercise programs. Social Group activities, namely organized sports, provide opportunities to make friends and form valuable relationships that will have a lasting impact on children in all areas of their lives. This course will offer ways to foster these relationships (as opposed to destroying them by creating cut-throat, overly competitive dynamics). Prevention Perhaps the most unaddressed benefit of sports today is its role in preventing many of the ills that plague the world--social, psychological and physical. This course will outline areas your program can focus on that will help you turn out not only better athletes but, hopefully, better people. Fred Engh is founder and CEO of the National Alliance for Youth Sports (NAYS) in West Palm Beach, Fla. He has been advocating positive and safe sports for children since 1981. He is also the author of “Why Johnny Hates Sports,” which is available on Amazon.com. He can be reached via e-mail at fengh@nays.org. |
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