How important is (was) sports in your life?  Did sports play a formative role
in helping you become what you are today?  What sports did you participate
in and would you recommend it to others?  Do you have strong feelings about
individual sports vs team sports?

It is fair to include other organized activities in this question.  (ie:  
chess club?)

27 responses total.

I found team sports to be very good in my life....I ran track and I played
baseball.  i still todya play summer and fall softball....

Anyway I think sports especially team sports can be vital in helping young
people develop....

Not at all, either participative or observative.  

Audrey, was that a response to #0, or to #1?  :)
Anyway, sports gave me low self-esteem and reminded me that I was a 
social outcast.  Thanking the great heavens that there's actually 
somebody more inept than you at baseball so you get stuck in center
field, not the Inferno of LEFT FIELD is a sign of prepubescent
desparation.

Dodge ball and sack the quarterback were popular
"sports" in my neck of the woods.  For those who don't know,
sack the qb is like full-body keepaway:  one kid has the football,
and has to hold onto it as every other kid tries to wrest it away
through tackles and other physical haranguing.  I recall playing 
primarily from boredom and peer pressure.  Whenver I got the ball,
I *immediately* threw it to someone else, but I got tackled anyway...

So I would say sports had a very powerful role in the development 
of my personality, and is one of the reasons why I hope when I have
children I have all girls... girls aren't *forced* to play sports for
social acceptance.
(Bitter?  Me?  Nah, not at all... :)

My response was to #0, the influence of sports in my life.

This response has been erased.

My experience in team sports was pretty sad also.  In Jr. High, we had 6 kids
try out for the basketball team.  It was a battle between me and the
superintendent's son to see who warmed the bench for the other 5.  Only the
tall kids had the chance at being even wanted.

I was never a great fan of sports as a child. Th ebiggest problem
I had was that so many people (teachers, classmates, etc) just 
assumed I knew all the rules and how to play, even the first few
times I played. Because of my nature at that age I didn't ask
questions about the games. I was already embarased that I didn't play the
games well, I didn't want to bring attention to the fact that, unlike
everyone else, I didn't know what I was supposed to do all the time.

All right, scratch my comments about children, Valerie.  I guess girls
get pretty abused in sports, too, or they can.
Even today, if I start to lightly toss something to my Valerie without
her being 100% forewarned, she covers her face defensively.  Memories
of dodgeball, she says.

Question:  why is spanking banned in most districts as corporal child
abuse, but dodgeball and sack-the-quarterback and other games that have
no obvious team-building or personality-building benefits not only
allowed but in most cases encouraged or even (great Gods!) required?
I can see the benefits of certain sports, such as those played 
professionally by adults, but what does dodgeball teach children, other
than winning involves beating the bloody snot out of your competition?
That's not a value I want *my* children to learn, and if they do learn
it, I'd like it to be from me.  Especially when most school districts
won't teach sex, love, and responsibility in that arena, but they will
teach my (still hypothetical) child how to be a blodthirsty warrior.
Harumph.

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Yes.  Valerie = Popcorn, my Valerie = the one I married.
I've only married one Valerie, so far.  *giggle*

Hmmmm so  am I the social outcast here?  I had very positive experiences from
both sports and band and choir.  Let me tell you it was no easy thing dealing
with being in marching band and having to listen to those jocks at practice
make fun of me because of it...
Well Brighn I have a son, He is 3.  He has already decided that He would like
to be a Hockey player when he grows up...no pressure...the kid just loves
hockey.  Sure some of it comes from me, I am a big hockey fan and watch it
regularly on the boob tube....He just came to me one day out of the blue and
said, "Dad when I grow up, I play Hockey!"

If they decide on their own, that's great, Dan.
I just don't like the pressure.

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I'm o.k., you're o.k.
That would make a good book title...
wait, shoot, too late...
*giggle*

Ughhhh

I've never had any real interest in team sports, either viewing or
participating.  I don't recall any really bad incidents in school, except
perhaps for a kickball game (indoors, with one of those red rubber utility
balls) where I made a great defense by taking the ball in the face (got a lot
of congrats for that one, and it didn't really hurt, so it wasn't all bad).

I'm a bit better at individual sports such as biking, etc., and have recently
gotten a lot better at taking up new ones.  I'd say that fitness activities
are a whole different thing than sports, though.

Hey Scott, sounds like you really took one for the team....

Although my experience with sports when I was younger was not all that
great, my experiences once I got into high school, and since then, were
much more positive. I also got into some sports that were not always
as main-stream as baseball/football etc. (such as archery and fencing)
and I think that made a big difference. I don't know if it was that I
didn't do well in team sports, because I do (I've played and greatly
enjoyed both soccer and paintball-yes it is classified as a sport by
many people) well in team related activities.

Is it too late to get in on the discussion here...because it seems to me that
no one has responded in 9 months...Team sports aren't mandatory to become a
well rounded healthy individual, but you must admit that they do help build
certain skills. They help to build self-confidence and a sense of
belonging....not to mention the physical aspect.  Not to change the subject
though...but did you know that Teddy Roosevelt wanted to make boxing mandatory
for school-age children?  Said it would help to build self-esteem.

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On the other hand, in boxing you would *not* have been put in the back row
just to keep you out of trouble.  The teacher would have found somebody else
your size, and you would have gotten just as much time as anybody else.

I found I was pretty athletic when I got into mountain biking and other
individual activities.  I just didn't do well in team sports.

Actually, I think Teddy's thought was, 'A boy who won't stand up for himself
isn't worth his own weight in salt.'  And I'm pretty sure that that's a direct
quote.  As for what Val said...I can see how that would have made things
difficult for you.  Maybe if you would have had a better gym coach things
would ahve been easier for you.  Either way it's given me something to think
about.

I don't know I think maybe, Yes I think that sports can help improve someone's
self-esteem, but like was mentioned if you are at least half way decent at
it.  But in return not all people were meant to be athletes, you may be
artistic, or intellectual.  Excelling in either of these two areas could and
certainly would help to boost self-esteem if one was somewhat talented in that
area.

Dunno.  I was required to play softball through all the years of elementary
school, during most of the gym classes during the summer months.  I don't
believe I ever hit a ball in all those years.  It didn't do a thing to improve
my self-esteem.  In retrospect, I realize that the sum-total of all the
attempts to actually teach me to hit a ball consisted of endless repetitions
of "keep your eye on the ball."  As a child of German immigrants, I didn't
have anyone at home teaching me to swing a bat, and the gym teachers sure
didn't.  I'm not a klutz, and never was.  I don't know that this did me any
permanent damage, since I mostly defended myself by defining competitive
sports and stupid and irrelevant to me, but it sure as hell never did me any
good.

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I think boxing would be a lot better than any team sport, though.

At Pioneer here in Ann Arbor we had a class called "Lifetime Sports", which
most weenies like me used to finish out the phys-ed requirments.  They taught
tennis, golf, bowling, even fencing.  It was much better than "Gym Class".

        My high school didn't have baseball of football and I'm really
glad they didn't.  I don't like the machismo that goes along with
tradational team sports.  I did play tennis in high school ans was OK
at least it wasn't traumatizing like playground sports were for me in
early grade school.  I like to ride my mountain bike these days, I guess
I agree with the people here who like individual sports to stay fit, though
I'm not as fit as I would like to be.

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