As someone who has done a school sport ever since elementary school, I believe that everybody should do a team sport, especially in high school. Today, I will be talking about the importance of doing a team sport in high school.
First, doing a sport can help you create long-lasting friendships and connections for the rest of your life. Of course, joining a sport with a friend can be helpful, but even if you don’t know anybody on the team, I guarantee you will create friends within the first week. Being placed in an environment where you have to work with others to reach a common goal, such as winning a match or game, helps strengthen your relationship with everybody. Personally, I have made some great lifelong friends that I know I can reach out to whenever I need help. It has also helped me create friends in other grades. In my freshman season of track and field, I was able to make friends from the 10th, 11th, and 12th grades. As some of those friends have graduated already, I have been able to connect to them through social media.
Second, it helps you become more hardworking and competitive. A study conducted in 2007 revealed that women who played sports in high school were 73% more likely to earn a college degree within six years of graduating high school. This is because playing a sport in high school gave them the ability to become hard-working and competitive. Sports have to compete against other schools to become the best, and even if you lose a game or match, it still strengthens your ability to be competitive because everybody wants to be the best. It also helps you be more hard-working because playing a sport especially teaches you that you have to work hard and practice hard every day to become the best you can be.
In conclusion, doing a team sport in high school has so many benefits that outweigh not doing one. They help you create long-lasting friendships and become competitive and successful in the future.
—Written by Momoko Kajioka
Momoko is a student at Notre Dame Academy in the 11th grade, where she runs Track & Field. She volunteers at the Palms-Rancho Park Library.
—Emily Meehan, YA Librarian, Palms-Rancho Park Branch
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