EDUCATION + SPORTS

For a long time, sports have been viewed as a way to stay healthy and in shape, but their importance goes much further. As a matter of fact, playing sports teaches life lessons like discipline, responsibility, self-confidence, accountability, and teamwork.

The benefits can be viewed from two lenses. The first is through the lens of being in college vs not attending college after high school. The second lens is the value of playing sports while attending college and positive impacts on college life and post-graduate income and job opportunities.
America faces an opportunity gap. Those born in the bottom ranks have difficulty moving up. Although the United States has long thought of itself as a meritocracy, a place where anyone who gets an education and works hard can make it, the facts tell a somewhat different story. Children born into the top fifth of the income distribution have about twice as much of a chance of becoming middle class or better in their adult years as those born into the bottom fifth (Isaacs, Sawhill, & Haskins, 2008).

One way that lower-income children can beat the odds is by getting a college degree. While sports isn’t the only way to get into college, it is a way and for those with the ability to use sport as a means to a college degree, we believe our ability to educate them on the process and have access to knowledge, tools and an expert to help answer questions can increase their confidence to engage in the process and be proactive in outreach to colleges and universities.

As for the benefits of playing sport once in college, college students who participated in athletics tended to fare better than non-athletes in their academic, personal and professional life during college and after graduation, a new Gallup study on alumni outcomes found.

In nearly all aspects of well-being, defined by Gallup as purpose, social, community and physical well-being, former athletes who competed in the National Collegiate Athletic Association were more likely to report they are “thriving” when it comes to health, relationships, community engagement and job satisfaction, according to the report released today. But in one category, financial well-being, former athletes and non-athletes who graduated in the last two decades reported similar levels of student loan debt, with about 20 percent of these graduates exceeding $40,000 in debt, the study found. (InsideHigherEd.com, 6/24/20)