When we think about sports we mostly think of the game and the athletes playing it, but it is so much more than that with many ways to be involved with a sport.

First, I want to introduce myself and my situation.

When I was about two years old, I was diagnosed with Spinal Muscular Atrophy a form of muscular dystrophy.

This is a disorder where over time my muscles would deteriorate and eventually, I would lose my ability to walk. I am not going to sugar code it growing up with this was not easy and I faced many challenges. The funny scenario was that even though I would never be able to play sports, I began to found myself falling in love with sports.

Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore and I needed to find a way to get myself involved with sports because I had no interest in anything else.

My mom would always try to get me to try new things like playing an instrument, but I could just not find myself interested at all.

In elementary school and throughout schooling throughout my whole life I always found myself hanging out with kids who participated in a sport which sparked my attention because I felt I could help.
In the eighth grade one of my best friends Devan Debay was considering not playing for our local football team the Pelham Razorbacks.

Devan played for the program since the third-grade level and was about to give up the last year. I could not let that happen, it was really bothering me because my whole life all I wanted to do was just strap up my pads and go play with my friends.

I knew I had to try and convince him to play somehow, but it was not going to be an easy task. At the time the problem was

Devan wanted to play hockey and move on from football.

The problem that every kid runs into when playing sports growing up is that it gets kind of political in a way.

For example, if the head coach had a son on the team, he would get the ball more, or if someone was involved with the organization for a time might have a pull on who plays and who doesn’t. I know this sounds a bit crazy because we were only 13 years old, but sadly it was a reality.

These issues couldn’t get in the way, I had to let my passion kick in and make sure this kid hears what I have to say.

So, one day I called Devan over to my house asking if he wanted to hang out. He did not know but I was going to use this time to do everything I could to have him play football.

I wanted to take a friendly approach I did not want him to feel like I was mad or disappointed that he wouldn’t play.

I made sure before he goes to my house I pulled out one of our old Razorback state championship sweatshirt, a helmet, and a football. I kind of wanted to use these as symbols to him. When he first entered my room, I told him he can we talk for a couple of minutes, and that is where our conversation began.

I started off by saying how I truly felt about my situation and asked how he thinks I feel when I see all our friends playing a sport or even doing an activity that I couldn’t do?

I was not trying to make him feel bad, but I wanted to him to kind of step into my perspective before I started talking about him playing his last year.

I remember Devan had a pretty good answering, “Well Tom, I know it sucks that you cannot play but you have to realize you give us motivation to keep going.” After he said that I knew I could have a chance of talking him out of quitting. I started by putting the sweatshirt on and bringing up the memories we had as kids.

When it wasn’t serious and playing football was a lot about having fun. I said, remember every Saturday morning from the past 7 years when your parents would come into your room and wake you up to play and you could even hear the excitement in their voice?

Do you remember all the hard work staying at Muldoon Park until almost 9 p.m. every night and then waking up and going to school? It was not all for nothing and I needed to him to start realizing that.

The conversation began to drift because I think he knew what I was trying to accomplish so I decided to keep it real. Devan was always short growing and was smaller than everyone even me, so you can figure that football would be a hard task for him. The thing is, it wasn’t, Devan was stronger than almost everyone even though he was half of our height.

That is one of the beautiful things about sports, as much as you think all that stuff matters it doesn’t. I remineded him how his toughness always got him through things in life. No matter how small he was he would still somehow end up making plays and at the end of the day that is what matters.

Our eighth grade Razorback team had a lot of issues going into the year, we went from a 40-kid team all the way down to 18 because a lot of kids felt the way Devan did.

I needed him to remember all the excitement, running out of the tunnel, getting our names announced, or even scoring a touchdown.

I asked him, in those moments how did you feel? He answered with, “I felt like I was on top of the world.” That is when I knew what I was saying was getting through to Devan. I then brought up this was our last year to all play with the kids we all grew up with.

As kids were moving on to private high schools, and different sports times were changing, and I wanted him to feel that.
How are you going to feel on a Saturday night when we are all under the lights as a family and you are on the sidelines? He said,

“Not good, and I hear what you are saying trust me I just feel like I might not get my opportunity.”

What he was missing is that is what sports is all about working harder than others and proving yourself to everyone. You are one of the strongest tacklers I have seen play football and you are shorter than everyone on the field, you are the underdog, and you need to use it as motivation as you have your whole life, I told Devan.

Finally, he did end up giving in and agreeing to play his final year. It was a great decision because that Razorback team will never be forgotten by anyone who was on that team.

Devan even told the head coach that the only reason why he was playing was because of me and our conversation coach answered with, “Well next scrimmage make sure you bring him I’ll get him a jersey and he will be on the team, he is one of us now.”

My life changed forever being a part of that team got me to fall in love with sports and everything about it.

There is no better feeling than stepping on a field with your brothers and fighting it out for your own town. Although we lost more than half of our team, we went on to win the State Championship.

That is why sports is so beautiful and brings so much excitement to not only the players, but the coaches, the fans, etc.

It does not come down to who has the biggest muscles or who can life the most weights or speed, none of that.

What matters is you love going out and putting in your time and effort for your team no matter what.

What matter is you giving your all even when up against someone bigger or stronger than you.

That is the beauty of it all.

A person who is proficient in sports and other forms of exercise is considered an athlete.

All over America throughout history much of our youth has been driven to participate in a sport while they are growing up.

I really want to stress that I think you can learn a lot of valuable lessons when doing a sport that you can use in all the phases in life.

Being involved in a team environment builds character and gives a young adult the sense of basic social skills that can be used while growing up.

Youth sports is kind of a family atmosphere, just like when at an occupation you need to learn how to work with your coworkers, when involved in a sport it is the same thing.

There is a sense that if someone goes down it is your responsibility to get them back up. Being involved with any type of sports can develop a lot of leadership skills also. Being able to talk to a group of people and direct them through a task that needs to be done is easier said than done.

The beauty of playing sports throughout your whole life is that at the start it is purely for fun, but like everything in life it gets more serious over time.

Once everyone reaches about the middle school level and are really molding into themselves is when things get a little more serious. The sports become a little more competitive as more of the kids get better at what they are doing.

Coaches get more serious and start to expect more from student athletes. School teams mostly have cuts so not everyone can make it.

This process I would have to say is probably the hardest part of growing up as an athlete. Right then and there they need to decide if this what they really want. Not only are they going to have to dedicate their time, but their body. Playing sports is not easy on your body especially when you are a kid, and your boy is still not even fully developed. There is a risk of injury and if you play a contact sport there is a pretty high risk of a head injury which is extremely severe.

As the athlete moves on to high school this is where you are playing to win now, and you are most likely representing the school that they go to and the town that they live in. I had the chance to be the manger for a lot of teams growing up and I can guarantee you there is no better feeling then running out with your teammates in front of the whole town and under those Friday night lights. Being an athlete in high school truly is a really hard task. Not only do practices run longer and every single day, the coursework load from your classes must be taken care of also. Your routine to be honest is wake up go to school then go to practice come home do all the homework you were assigned and then shower and go to bed then do it all over again. It is exhausting mentally and physically, but at the end of the day if you love the game, it should be worth it to you.

The first two years of high school athlete is really a preparation for when you will be an upper classman and playing for the varsity team. Freshman and Sophomore year is more about building bonds that can last for all four years when you are playing in more meaningful games. Not that junior varsity games are not important because they are this is where you continue to build relationships with teammates, but not only that you have to develop your skills at the sport and if you want to have an important part on the varsity team you really have to perfect your craft.

A lot of people are asking is this all worth it in the end? To those people I say yes!

If you had success at the varsity level in high school, there is a good chance that you can continue your athletic career at a college. This is not an easy task at all, and I don’t want anyone to think it is. To play sports at the collegiate level is extremely hard and getting an offer from a school is not an easy to do either. The reality is most people are not division one athletes and it is hard to reach this level. This does not mean you cannot go to a division 2 or 3 school or even a community college to continue to play the sport you love. Starting at a two-year community college is honestly a great idea. For example, here at Northern Essex Community College we offer a bunch of sports, and this is a great way of getting seen by other colleges you may want to finish at.

One of my best friends growing up, Anthony Caggenoli, was an extremely talented football player growing up ever since he was 10. To be honest he was probably the best football player I have ever seen. He was born gifted with that athletic ability and to see him grow into the player he is now has been an honor. Anthony plays division 3 football at Endicott College, and he is the starting running back.

I even got Anthony to answer some questions for this report because he is a great credible source when it comes to this stuff. My first question to him was what does he find the biggest struggle being a college athlete?

Anthony responded with, “you know waking up at 6 in the morning and putting all of that athletic load on your body that early has to be the toughest part, but it does prepare you for the rest of the day which I enjoy”. Next, I asked him if the best part of being able to play football at Endicott? His response,” Being able to go to school on a scholarship really helped me out and my family because I am now lucky enough to leave college with a little debt and without football this would not have been possible.

The bottom line in life as an athlete is not an easy thing to do even if you are not a professional. These kids at a young age sacrifice their bodies, time, social life’s, etc. just to play a game that they love, and I believe that is the beauty of it. Sports is an extreme positive to someone’s life because they can take all these lessons and use them in their everyday life. Having a teammate mentality can only make you more successful in life because you know how to work well with others!

When you are a young child and you are growing up, depending on your interests you might want to get involved with a sports team.

As you see other people and friends start to grow into themselves and maybe start to play sports you might find yourself interested too. A lot of people think it takes just a couple of easy steps to play a sport, you just sign up and show up, well that is not the case.

When you decide to play a sport, you need to really take a lot of things into factor.

Time, health, and money are all involved with playing a sport growing up and when you do sign up for a sport you are putting all these things at risk.

First, I want to start off with one of the most important things in life that we must manage which is time.

As you are growing up you start really struggling on managing your time and what aspects of life the time should be focused on.

With the struggle of separating time, with school, family and your social life adding a sport to this will take away a lot of you time for this type of stuff.

When playing a sport there is always some sort of practice and as you get older, and the sport gets more serious there is a high chance that you will be practicing every day during the week.

From my personal experience, middle school is when coaches feel that is needed to start having practices every day after school.

With this demand there becomes some issues that might interfere with other aspects of your life.

Let’s say you as a student struggle with doing your homework and getting assignments in on time, having a practice every day is really going to affect your work.

The problem with this is that most schools have a specific standard on grades when playing a sport. Most school’s do not allow students athletes to play if they do not maintain a certain GPA, or a system where they must get certain letter grades.

When I was in middle school, I was the team manager and everyone on the team was expected to always be passing every class or you could not play.

If any of your grades did end up going below a 70 you would be asked to get the grade back up or you wouldn’t be able to play, in my case, manage.

So before signing up for a sport you should really think about your education first because at the end of the day that is what is most important.

Also, you cannot forget that playing a sport is going to take time from you being at home with your loved ones or going out with your friends on the weekend.

So, it is important to make sure you have your priorities straight before committing to anything.

The next thing you really must think about when signing up for any sport, whether it involves contact or not, is your health.

As a young adult it is extremely important to keep your body healthy when it concerns broken bones, torn ligaments, concussion, etc.

Playing a sport does put you at a risk for injury and depending what sport it can be more serious.

For example, if you want to play football you have to understand you are signing up for the one of the most dangerous sports you can play because of all the contact.

The thing that bothers parents the most I think when letting their kid play football is the high risk of head injury.

According to Dr. Jaycie Loewen, “Statistics show that about 20% of all high school football players experience brain trauma every football season and that football is responsible for more than 60% of concussions in high school sports” according to an article in Cognitive FX.

So, as you can see signing up for football does put a risk to your physical health. This is something you really must decide if you want to put your body at risk, for the rest of your life.

The main problem is that most of these injuries tend to linger with you for the rest of time that could lead to surgeries and multiple complications.

Lastly you must think about the financial state you are in when you are signing up for a sport.

Like I said earlier a lot of people tend to make the mistake and think they can just sign up for a sport and show up, but that is not the case.

First you must think of the organization you are playing for.
If it is not a school team there is mostly a startup fee for playing the sport which can really range depending on how serious the organization is.

For example, if you are playing for an AAU team you are most likely paying a lot of money to play, or your parents are depending on the situation. That is only the start.

The next important thing we need to think about is equipment.

Sports equipment is extremely expensive no matter what sport you are playing.

A survey done by NBC news shows, “Americans also spent more than $33 billion on athletic equipment and $19 billion on gym memberships over the past year, according to the survey.

In all, consumers shelled out more than $100 billion on sports-related purchases in the last 12 months” according to an article in CNBC.

So before signing up parents should make sure that they are financially stable enough to put their kid through a certain program.

To conclude my friend Evan Leblanc who is a former student at Northern Essex Community College took some time out of his day to answer some questions.

Although Evan did not play any sports at NECC, he played varsity football at Central Catholic, a local high school in Lawrence.
I started the conversation with me explaining how I would be asking questions concerning the risks of playing a sport.

My first question to him was, when did he begin to realize that the sport, he was playing was so dangerous and could affect his life?

Evan answered with, “I really didn’t realize how dangerous football was until we started to practice in high school. We were one of the top schools at football, so coming I was expecting us to be hitting each other a lot, but it was the opposite.

“Our coach felt it was too dangerous to hit during practice and was left for the games.”

Next, I went into asking him how much money he think his parents have spent on him on his equipment.

Evan answered immediately with, “A lot, especially for me because as a kid I began to grow faster than the other kids so I would constantly be finding myself needing new cleats, shoulder pads, and even a helmet, so yes we were constantly spending money every couple of months, but my parents really didn’t mind it because they knew how much I loved playing football.”
My last question to Evan was it worth all the time he lost with friends and family, everything he dedicated to the sport?

Evan responded with, “Absolutely it was worth it I made some of the best memories of my life playing football, I would not change it for anything.”

The bottom line the decision to play the sport is up to you.

If you have a certain love for the game, where you just find yourself happy and smiling while playing than the risks might be worth taking.

It is just important to know all the risks before committing to a team that needs you.