All our children and many of their friends play touch football on a Friday evening, and I am the coach for one of the teams.Along with a number of other parents, I have commenced reflecting on a range of life-lessons that touch football (or any team sport for that matter) can provide. Not only do our kids enjoy playing touch football, but we see it as an opportunity for them to develop some of the key building blocks of their worldview.
I think this exercise also illustrates the essence/form dialectic reflected in Lance Armstrong's now famous book title: Its not about the bike. In other words, touch football is not about the football.
Additionally, I think that reflecting on these essential lessons form football illustrates the relationship between worldview and behaviour whereby worldview is the 'skeleton of concrete cognitive assumptions on which the flesh of customary behaviour is hung' (Wallace 1970, p. 143). Understood this way, sport influences the formative stages of children's worldview development in important ways - something that is supported in the literature.
I am convinced that touch football can deliver life-lessons in areas which include:
- Perceptiveness
- Peseverance
- Commitment
- Outcomes and rules
- Contol
- Cooperation
- Success and winning
- Challenge
- Learning
- Respect
- Responsibility
- Attitude
- Thinking
- Preparation and practice
Perceptiveness
To be perceptive means to genuinely understand something, and it comes from the Latin word percipere which means "to lay hold of", or "grasp". In common parlance, perceiving something means "getting it". Philosophically, it means knowing the essence of something.
Edward deBono has said that 'most of the mistakes in thinking are inadequacies of perception rather than mistakes of logic'. Consequently, to develop perception is to help our children see beyond what is immediately in front of them, and to understand what is really going on.
In touch football, a fuller understanding of perceptiveness is accomplished when our children learn to:
- read the play
- get a sense for things
- get a feel for where/how the ball is going to be played
To persevere means to maintain a sense of purpose and action despite obstacles or discouragement, and comes from the Latin word perseverare which means "to persist". Perseverance is hanging in there and persisting, even when you don't feel like it.
Benjamin Disrali, the great British prime minister once said that 'through perseverance many people win success out of what seemed destined to be certain failure'. Moreover, the Welsh have a saying that without perseverance talent is a barren bed.
In touch football, a fuller understanding of perseverance is accomplished when our children learn to:
- never give up
- keep on playing until the end
- realise that its not over until its over
To commit means to follow through on a promise and comes from the Latin word committere which means "to bring together". In many ways commitment is bringing together intention and action as one.
Emphasising the importance of commitment, Rollo May, the existential psychologist once said that 'the acorn becomes an oak by means of automatic growth; no commitment is necessary. The kitten similarly becomes a cat on the basis of instinct. Nature and being are identical in creatures like them. But a man or woman becomes fully human only by his or her choices and his or her commitment to them'.
In touch football, a fuller understanding of commitment is is accomplished when our children learn that:
- joining for a season means playing each week
- turning up on time to a match
- you play out the game even if your tired
- play out the season even if you've lost your enthusiasm
Outcomes are the things that happen in life, the consequences and the results of everyone’s actions. In this respect, life is constituted of outcomes and they are not fairly arranged. There is a saying that we are responsible for the effort, not the outcomes, and this true in all areas of life.
In touch football, a fuller understanding of outcomes is accomplished when our children learn that:
- sometimes you win and sometimes you lose
- the best team does not always win
- you can win one week and lose the next week
- mistakes just happen
- not all games or referring decisions are fair
- you have to play by the rules and the rules apply to everybody
To control is to direct or exert a directing influence over something. As human beings, control is something we assume we do all the time. Moreover, depending on our different personalities, we variously assume different degrees and domains of control. However, although human agency requires us to assume responsibility for our individual person-hood, control remains in many ways an illusion (or a projection of our own ego).
The British prime minister Benjamin Disrali stated that ‘circumstances are beyond human control, but our conduct is in our own power’. In this way, knowing what we can control and what we can’t is a vital lesson for children.
In touch football, a fuller understanding of control is accomplished when our children learn that:
- you can't control the outcome of a game
- all you can control is your desire to do your best
- you can’t control another player
Perhaps one of the most explicit lessons which flows from being a member of a team is that of cooperation, which comes from the Latin word cooperārī and means "to work with". Simply put, cooperation means to work together. The flying geese analogy is useful in this respect.
Bertrand Russell, the British philosopher once asserted the importance of cooperation when he stated that 'the only thing that will redeem mankind is cooperation'. Remember the proverb, if you want to be incrementally better: be competitive. If you want to be exponentially better: be cooperative.
In touch football, a fuller understanding of cooperation is accomplished when our children learn that:
- you win as a team & you lose as a team
- you have to trust and rely on your team mates
- you don't hog the ball
- everyone plays differently & everyone is good at different things
To succeed means to achieve what is attempted, and winning comes from the Old English word gewinnan which means "to gain or succeed by struggling". In other words, success and winning are outcomes of a process, in which we much expend effort. Moreover, because outcomes are not within our control, neither is winning (or success), and in this respect, winning is something that happens to us (rather than something we achieve).
Reflecting the old proverb that winning isn't everything, the Welsh poet, George Herbery once said that 'sometimes the best gain is to lose'. This demonstrates that winning is a matter of objectives, and objectives are very much personal. Moreover, Winston Churchill, the British prime minister once said that 'success is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm'. Perhaps this is why Woody Allen said 'eighty percent of success is showing up'.
In touch football, a fuller understanding of success is achieved when our our children learn that:
- winning is not an outcome it is a process
- winning is achieved one play at a time
- to win, you have to focus on playing
- you don't skite when you win
- even if you lose you can still win respect and learning
Challenge
Life is full of challenges. Moreover, the historian Arnold Toynbee believed that history was nothing but the dynamic interplay of challenge and response, and how people respond to challenge is the measure of civilisation.
The actor Sean Connery says that 'there is nothing like a challenge to bring out the best in man'. Reflecting his Jungian worldview, Joseph Campbell has said that 'opportunities to find deeper powers within ourselves come when life seems most challenging. Challenges produce responses and the measure of our responses are the measure of our value as human beings.
In touch football, a fuller understanding of challenge is achieved when our our children learn that:
- winning easy is not as satisfying as winning hard
- there is no satisfaction in beating a team that is smaller, younger or less experienced
- you never regret trying hard
- playing up is better than playing down
Learning
Learning means to acquire knowledge or skill, and comes from the Old English word leornian which means "to get knowledge". Therefore we can conclude that learning is an outcome of perceiving and thinking which produces knowledge.
The psychologist Carl Rogers once said that 'the only kind of learning which significantly influences behavior is self-discovered or self-appropriated learning - truth that has been assimilated in experience'. Perhaps this is why mistakes and failures are so important for learning - they represent activities with implicit self-involvement.
In touch football, a fuller understanding of learning is achieved when our our children learn that:
- you win more from losing than winning
- you learn from your mistakes
- everyone makes mistakes
- learn one thing at a time
Respect
Respect refers to a particular relationship we have toward a person. To respect someone is to show them deference or esteem. It comes from the Latin word respectus which means "regard," and contains the sense of how we look at someone one. Therefore, to have respect is to regard someone in an honourable manner. Psychologically implicit in the recognition of other as other, respect is the character of a proper relationship toward other.
In touch football, a fuller understanding of learning is achieved when our our children learn to:
- accept the referee’s decision is final
- do what the coach says
- respect the other teams players
Responsibility
To be responsible means to be accountable or answerable for or to , and comes from the Latin word responsus, which in turn comes from another Latin word respondere which means "to respond" and which contains the word spondere which means to pledge. Therefore, we can see that responsibility relates to commitment insofar as we pledge our accountability for the uniting of intention and action.
The English playwright George Bernard Shaw once said that 'liberty means responsibility'. it has been said that the ability to accept responsibility is the measure of a man. Consequently, to know what responsibility is, and to learn how accept and show it are important lessons for our children.
In touch football, a fuller understanding of responsibility is achieved when our our children learn to:
- play and stay in your position
- never blame someone else for a mistake
- help implement game strategy
Our attitude is our manner, disposition or orientation toward something, and comes from the Italian word attitudine which means "disposition" or "posture". Our attitude reflects our feelings which reflect how important something is.
The American football coach says that 'ability is what you're capable of doing, motivation determines what you do, and attitude determines how well you do it'. This is why Winston Churchill, the English prime minister said that 'attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference, and Albert Einstein said 'weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character'.
In touch football, a fuller understanding of attitude is achieved when our our children learn that:
- your attitude affects the way you play
- focus on playing not winning
- your best is all you can do
To think means to conceive things in our mind. It is the active application of our mind toward some object or task. Thinking is a conscious process however, and although it seems self evident, it is amazing how much of our lives are spent not thinking, acting unconsciously or instinctively. To develop thinking is to develop consciousness which is to grow.
Blaise Pascal, the French philosopher, once said 'man's greatness lies in his power of thought'. Vernon Howard, the American philosopher, once said that 'we are enslaved by anything we do not consciously see, and we are freed by conscious perception'. To think is to consciously arrange our perceptions.
In touch football, a fuller understanding of thinking is achieved when our our children learn that:
- strategy involves both offence and defence
- you think before you play
- there’s more to scoring a try than running fast or ducking and weaving
- you always keep paying attention to what is happening
To prepare means "to get ready", and comes from the Latin word praeparāre which means "to make ready beforehand". The word "ready" comes from and Old English word which means to "be arranged", and therefore has the meaning of having everything arranged or in-place for what lies ahead. Practice ensures that our skills are correctly arranged and ready.
The inventor, Alexander Graham Bell, once said that 'before anything else, preparation is the key to success', and the Roman author Publilius Syrus said that 'practice is the best of all instructors'. Practice is an important element of preparation and preparation is the foundation of success.
In touch football, a fuller understanding of preparation and practice is achieved when our our children learn that:
- skills are developed through practicing them
- get to the game early to practice
- the fitter you are the better you play