1. Your self-confidence grows.

It teaches you to believe in yourself. After working hard and being equipped, you must have confidence that you can walk into the situation and give your all, knowing you achieved something whether winning or losing. You have to believe that you are able, even when what your coach is asking seems impossible. You do not have to be perfect in the beginning, but believe in yourself enough to chase after your goal and eventually reach it.

2. You learn to overcome your fears and claim courage.

It’s scary to trust your coach and believe that greater things are possible. They may show you a million times or you may ace that skill over and over, but still there is always a chance to mess up or fail. You learn not to let that fear stop you, because the excitement and the chance to succeed are always better. There is fear of injury, fear of your coach’s wrath, fear of letting your team down, but all you can give is your best. If you mess up, you learn to get back at it and to have courage to try again.

3. You don’t just give up.

Life is going to be hard, and sometimes we fail, but the people who just give up will get nowhere; you have to try again. My coach would say, “You have to fall to learn.” You can’t let the fear of failure stop you. But things do not just come perfectly the first time we try. That’s life. But getting back up makes you better. Learning from mistakes grows you. And this is a life lesson that being an athlete (well mostly the bruised knees and exhausted tears) taught me.

4. You value hard work.

You understand how much effort and practice goes into your skills. To do something well it takes time, training, building, and equipping. You may hear others say all the time, “that’s so easy, I can do that!” Let’s be real, that took us 3 months, a trip to the ER, and about a million push-ups and squats to be able to get that well. Our first reaction to anyone saying that is, “I wanna see you try!” Just to be able to prove to them how hard you worked. But the real joy and value comes not in others seeing the amount of effort given, it's being able to present a final project that is so well done, knowing you accomplished that because you put time and hard work into it.

5. You hold onto hope.

No matter how far behind your team is, no matter how many more laps or push-ups your coach will make you do for not getting a skill right, there is always the hope to finally get it right. You can always give more effort. The game is not over until the buzzer sounds! You can’t lose sight of the goal; you have to hold onto hope that there is always a chance to get there. If you don’t believe that it’s possible, what is going to cause you to try?

6. You build character.

You learn to take criticism and learn from others. You learn how to build people up: encouraging your teammates and rocking school spirit. You also learned how to tear people down: trash talking through the volley ball net and teasing during scrimmages (hey, it helps them try harder and do better right?). There is a right time and place for both… (Trash talking is very necessary when watching football and while playing Xbox).

7. You know how to “don't try; do.”

There really does seem to be a difference to your coach. The difference comes in the goal. You have to try to be able to do, yes. But just trying does not always end in the doing of the goal. So you learn to set your goal to do whatever the coach asks and you force yourself to complete it to the best of your efforts. Say, instead of just trying to make those 16 laps and ending around 10, you do those 16 laps no matter how much you feel like you could collapse.

8. You learn how to enjoy life.

Sports could be torture and there were days we all wanted to quit. There were early mornings, too many practices, but rain or shine you went. But no matter the sore muscles, sprained ankles, concussions, blood, sweat, and tears, there was something enjoyable about working hard and accomplishing something great. The beautiful feeling of success when you completed a skill even better than before. You learned the feeling of completion and achievement was enough to make you successful, not just the place you got in competition. There is an energy and life from getting your mind working through passes, sprinting across the field, expressing yourself through dance, and acing a new skill. Sports shaped in you this life skill to seek the rewards, despite the endless training and tiresome practices. Even in college or future workplace, you know how tiring it can be to spend time and effort on things that you don’t particularly enjoy. But you can enjoy the rewards work brings: the people you meet along the way, the character building, and most of all just a love for the game.