Sports Does Not Build Character, Coaches Build Character
Many people like to say that sports builds character in athletes. I adamantly disagree with this sentiment. If you search the sports headlines, it would be just as easy to find professional and college athletes with good character as those with bad character.
Playing sports has nothing to do with whether an athlete grows up to be one of good character. Instead, it’s the coaching that an athlete gets that dictates how they develop. Coaches teach athletes that winning is the most important thing or that doing the right thing is more important.
Athletes have many coaches over their careers, and those with high character are typically the ones who have coaches with high character. With that said, if you are a coach of high character, there are 10 character building lessons in particular I suggest you prioritize in your athletes before you pass them on to another coach.
- Always choose what’s right over what’s convenient.
- The fear of failure is the greatest failure of all.
- Challenges are what makes life interesting, overcoming them is what makes life meaningful.
- The harder you work for something, the better you will feel when you achieve it.
- Life is fair because it’s unfair to everyone.
- What comes easy won’t last, what last won’t come easy.
- Life is 10% of what happens to you and 90% of how you react to it.
- Suffer the pain of discipline or suffer the pain of regret.
- Courage is not the absence of fear, it’s the ability to be your best self in the presence of fear.
- Falling down is part of life, getting back up is living.