I came across an interesting NCAA study on the probability of competing in sports beyond high school. Depending on the sport, the chances of advancing to the collegiate level range from about 3% to 11%. So, consider your son’s football team or your daughter’s soccer team of 25 to 30 kids. At best, only two or three of them will play that sport in college.
Some will look at those numbers, along with the extreme weaknesses of our sports-crazed culture, and decide there are plenty of more beneficial things their children could do than play sports. However, I would argue that, with the right perspective, youth sports offer valuable experiences that can develop character and disciplines beneficial throughout life.
Do you view the activities your child participates in as a ticket to college, a lucrative professional contract or an endorsement deal with Nike? If you view sports as a pathway to one, some or all of those outcomes, then, in my opinion, you are looking at them all wrong.
Instead, consider viewing the sports your children play as tools that can help develop character and discipline that will serve them for decades, and even eternity, to come. Sports teach many worthwhile lessons, including a strong work ethic, teamwork, sacrifice and goal-setting. They also provide opportunities to experience both success and failure.
My sons, for example, are interested in all kinds of sports. If you can keep score and somehow hit somebody, they are all in. My prayer as a dad is that I can take the passions, gifts and abilities built into my sons and channel them toward developing godly character and discipline that will serve them for the rest of their lives.
As Paul tells Timothy in 1 Timothy 4:8, “For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.” My prayer is that the value of physical training through sports will be used by God, through the power of the Holy Spirit, to bring about godliness in my boys that holds promise for today and for eternity.