As children get older, they must discover and prioritize their values in life. Values can help guide them in making life decisions both short- and long-term. Football can help children discover and prioritize healthy values to set them up for success in life.

According to Oxford Languages,¹ values are “a person’s principles or standards of behavior; one’s judgment of what is important in life.” This definition gives freedom of ethical and unethical values. Whatever is important to an individual, good or bad, will be valued. And this can drive good or bad behavior.

I personally like the definition of values from Cambridge Dictionary:² the principles that help you to decide what is right and wrong, and how to act in various situations. There may be some grey area in what behavior is right verses wrong, but that is where influential groups can help. These include parents, coaches, teachers, religious leaders, and mentors.

One of the many benefits of playing football is that football can help children discover and prioritize healthy values in their lives. We will see how this is possible in the following sections:

• Importance of Discovering Values in Life
• Discovering My Values
• Football Teams Address Values
• Football Forces Children to Discover Healthy Values
• Football is a Time Commitment
• Football Builds Trusting Relationships
• Football Creates a Culture of Growth

Importance of Discovering Values in Life

Values can help guide children in their lives. When children understand their values, they are more likely to make decisions that align with those values. They are going to prioritize those values and act in accordance with them.

Without even knowing their values, all kids have things they prioritize in life. A 12-year-old boy may prioritize food and videogames over schoolwork and physical movement. For this child, it is about instant gratification. Food and videogames satisfy his needs to decrease hunger and boredom. It also rewards him with a dopamine hit in the brain. While this may be beneficial in small amounts, continual eating and playing videogames can be detrimental to physical and mental health.

When children take a step back from the instant rewards to look at the bigger picture, they will find what they truly desire in life. They will discover their values. They will figure out the people and activities that are meaningful to them. They will prioritize these relationships and activities and act accordingly. Then, their behaviors will align with their values.

Yes, all kids should enjoy their time as kids by playing with friends and doing activities that make them happy. They should not have to worry about the future. However, the sooner they discover their true values, the faster they will create healthy habits. They will make decisions that align with their values despite peer pressure to do otherwise. Values will help children avoid trouble, drugs, and alcohol in their teenage years.

Discovering of My Values

Growing up in a small town as a Catholic boy and going to CCD and church every Sunday, I learned about morality—the difference between right and wrong. In my childhood, I did more than enough wrong things and was rightly disciplined for them. My parents were loving and caring but also taught me well and ensured I learned from my mistakes. However, it wasn’t until the summer going into my sophomore year of high school that I learned about values.

I was at the Jeff Trickey Quarterback and Leadership Camp at Waukesha West high school in southeastern Wisconsin. Coach Trickey travels around the country with many former players and coaches teaching quarterback and leadership skills. The camp introduction speech included a discussion on values and priorities. Coach Trickey shared his values and how they govern his daily decisions and behaviors. He puts his faith and God first, followed by family, work, football, and fun.

This hit home with me, and I started to think about things that I value. I ordered my values similarly: Faith, Family, School, Sports, Fun. As a sophomore in high school, these values helped me take on responsibility and learn time management skills that carried over to college, graduate school, and now life.

Unknowingly, creating and following these values helped to instill my identity. They guided my small decisions each day so that I would create good habits that ensured effortless alignment with my values. I put systems in place that would help me progress toward my goals. James Clear details this concept clearly in his book, Atomic Habits.³

I went to church every weekend and was active in altar serving. I ate dinner with my family, sometimes helping my mom cook when my schedule allowed. I spent time with my parents and grandparents on the weekends. I stopped playing videogames.

I had a sleep schedule of 9 pm to 6 am during the week for recovery. I ate breakfast and packed healthy snacks to increase my weight. I was physically and mentally present in class and used study hall to minimize homework. I ate lunch with my friends, sometimes while watching film. And I was in the weight room or at practice every day, always on time, and ready to work.

These systems helped me reach many personal goals like getting straight A’s, gaining ten pounds before junior year, and lifting more weight. The habits and systems I formed based on my values led to creating my identity. I wanted people to see me as a hard-working student athlete who possesses Faith, cares for others, and has integrity. I did not know how important these would be 15 years later. I was simply guided by values to do the little things right to help reach my goals.

Football Teams Address Values

Not all children can attend leadership camps or have mentors that teach them about values. Sport coaches and teachers sometimes discuss time management skills. Most team sports have rules and set goals. But many football teams address values.

Often, these are team values that help them create habits and systems to achieve goals. The team values lead to standards for weight room, practice, film room, and games. Then, these standards translate into everyday habits in life.

On the Muskego high school football team, we value mental sharpness, physical effort, and a positive attitude. When we are elite mentally, we will study well and do our jobs on the field. When we are the ‘best effort team in the state’ (per Coach Lucchesi), we will grow each day and play to our potential on Friday night. And when we stay positive, we will have fun battling daily challenges and fighting through adversity on the field.

These values allow us to set standards for mental, physical, and emotional energy. Through the years, these standards have increased because new players continue to raise the bar. Whether it is in the weight room, on the field, in the classroom, or within the community, the standard is maintained. No matter the situation, the players, coaches, and staff are expected to dominate the controllables. They should be mentally sharp, exert physical effort, and have a positive attitude.

Football programs address values by setting team values and standards to help them reach their goals.

Football Forces Children to Discover Healthy Values

Through team values, football can show children the importance of having personal values to create habits and set systems to reach their goals. Habits like focus, hard work, and a positive attitude can translate into school and life.

In addition, football can force children to learn and discover their personal values. This is due to the time spent on football-related activities, the friends and mentors gained, and the physical nature and difficulty of the game.

Children can discover personal values by being a part of a football team because football is a time commitment, builds trusting relationships, and creates a culture of growth.

Football is a Time Commitment

 First, the time commitment of football forces children to learn time-management skills and prioritize activities based on values.

There are not many sports that are as time-consuming as football. Due to learning game strategy, football skills, and the playbook, football requires more time at practice along with possibly some home study.

At the high school level, summer practices are often every weekday. They may be 3-4 hours long at a minimum, but two-a-day practices can last 6-7 hours using on-field, film, and gym segments. Then, as the season goes on, practice is still daily, but the times usually shorten to 2-3 hours to keep the players fresh and have more time for schoolwork.

In addition, football commitments in high school are often year-round when the players are not involved in other sports. Ideally, children are involved in multiple sports or activities to become all-around athletes with multiple skills. But if they are not, they are expected to be in the weight room to work on their fitness levels.

This is by far a larger time commitment than other sports in high school. It may even be larger than many collegiate-level sports, especially the lower levels.

The large time commitment teaches children time management skills. Most of the minutes during the day are filled with sleep, school, and football, so there is limited time left that needs to be managed for other priorities. A typical teenager may try to dismiss some priorities like family time and schoolwork to have more fun and leisure time. But if he wants to be eligible for football, he must keep his grades acceptable.

As Joshua Medcalf says in his book, Win In The Dark,⁴ “time is the ultimate currency. We only get 86,400 seconds in a day.” The time commitment of football can force children to learn how to manage time by discovering and prioritizing their values.

Football Builds Trusting Relationships

Second, there are many people involved in a football program. Everyone is relied on by others to do their jobs to improve the team. This can help build trusting relationships with teammates, coaches, and staff. When strong relationships are formed, children will want to value and prioritize them over other, less meaningful activities.

A football program is more likely to build strong relationships than other sports because of the team values, the team’s organizational structure, and the time spent together.

Team values set the expectations for behaviors among all personnel. Many adhere to these expectations because they develop respect for team values. They build trust by doing the right thing. When someone makes a mistake, it challenges the relationships of that individual with his teammates and coaches. Integrity builds strong relationships, but honesty and confession complemented with forgiveness from others fortify them. If the team is valued, children will want to and learn how to maintain relationships.

A football team’s organizational structure contains large and small units. Large units are offense, defense, and special teams, whereas smaller units are position groups within the larger ones. Each unit has its own coach or coaches along with upper- and underclassmen. These smaller units spend more time together. They learn from, compete with, and challenge one another, which helps build relationships.

Time is love. The amount of time spent with the team in the weight room, on the field, and in the locker room fosters a family bond. This bond is held together by the love that is shared by players and coaches. Similar to a family, sibling-like and parent-child-like relationships are formed. People do not want to disappoint their family, so children learn to prioritize their values to meet expectations from their team.

Football Creates a Culture of Growth

Lastly, football creates a culture of growth from a dependent child to an independent adolescent. When independence is earned, adolescents have more freedom to choose what is best for them in their lives, ideally based on healthy values.

Children are often near-sighted looking for immediate pleasures in life. They want a specific piece of candy or toy. They want to play videogames providing immediate satisfaction. Because they are dependent on parents, children value these instant rewards. Parents need to control what their children are allowed to have or do because they don’t understand healthy values and priorities.

Because football is hard, it teaches delayed gratification. Winning and success does not happen overnight. A child must value his team and performance to give 100% effort in the weight room and on the practice field. Those who make the conscious decision to work hard in the off-season and at practice will be rewarded during games.

The expectations and standards instilled in the culture of the football program force children to grow. Players are expected to be accountable to the team. They must be on time and present, physically and mentally, for team events, practices, and games. They must also be eligible to play by getting good grades in school, hence, valuing education, and by abstaining from drugs, alcohol, and violence, which promotes proper ethical behavior.

This culture forces adolescents to think about each decision they make, hopefully making more good decisions than poor, which creates and sustains good habits. Therefore, these healthy habits can translate to the classroom and around the community. In this way, football helps children to grow and gain independence in life.

Summary

In conclusion, values are the principles that help you decide what is right and wrong to produce appropriate behaviors. It is important for children to discover values early in life because healthy values can guide proper decisions and behaviors.

Football teams address values by preaching team values. Team values set expectations and standards for players, coaches, and staff to create healthy habits and systems. These systems can help the team reach their goals.

Football can also help children to discover healthy values because football is a time commitment, builds trusting relationships, and creates a culture of growth. The large time commitment forces kids to choose values and manage priorities. The relationships gained through football help children value meaningful relationships in their lives. Football culture forces children to grow by meeting expectations and standards to gain independence.

Football helps children discover and prioritize their values in life, which will set them up for success in life.

References

1. Oxford Languages. Values. Oxford Language Dictionary via Google website. Accessed April 2, 2023. https://languages.oup.com/google-dictionary-en/
2. Cambridge University. Values. Cambridge University Dictionary website. Accessed April 8, 2023. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/values
3. Clear, James. Atomic Habits. New York: Avery, an imprint of Penguin Random House, LLC; 2018.
4. Medcalf J & Jaden L. Win In The Dark: Some think you shine under the bright lights, the bright lights only reveal your work in the dark. New Jersey: R. R. Bowker LLC; 2020.