Sports and the Cognitive Development of Our Youth

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Sports and the Cognitive Development of our youth. Fundamentals of Education Hans R. Duiker 12/5/2011 The ever demanding world of competition and the quest to be the best starts at a young age and continues on into our professional lives. As a society we embrace the competitive nature that some people exhibit on a daily basis. We often pay to see the strongest, fastest, smartest people participate in sporting events that many of us played while in our youth. These participants are the best in what they do just as Steve Jobs was the best in what he did. We reward those that are successful in the business arena by promoting them to managers or CEO’s. Doctors become the best at what they do by doing the research and practice needed to be the best. Vince Lombardi, the late great coach of the Green Bay Packers, once said “that winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing (Vince Lombardi (n.d), 2011)!” This holds true in all that we do as a society; we want to be the best! Being the best starts at an early age and is compounded by those that have a positive influence on an individual. In the sporting arena the coaches and managers are the most influential people in an athlete’s life. In this paper I will show that through sports a child’s development of social skills, motor skills, cognitive development, and overall good health practices begins at an early age. To begin I must give a brief history of what I have done to form this belief. I started playing football when I was 12 for a youth tackle football program in the city of Brook Park. I played for two years for a team called American Legion before I went to Ford Middle School and played 8th grade football. I next went to Berea High School and played for four years. This is where my desire to coach football became a goal. My junior year in high school, I was asked by the

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