I believe enthusiastically in the power of sport to make a positive impact in people’s lives. For the participant, it teaches valuable life lessons, such as discipline and goal setting. For the spectator, it gives them a chance to become a part of something greater than themselves.
In life we are often given the choice between doing what is right and doing what is easy.
Sport can teach one to enjoy suffering. Suffering is inevitable. Physical pain and emotional anguish are as part and parcel to the human experience as joy and exhilaration. What many don’t realize is that we are given the choice to suffer on our own terms, or on somebody else’s. If we sit back and let the world “come to us,” then we are beholden to others.
The key to happiness is embracing hard work on your own terms. Work hurts, but if you enter it deliberately, honestly and with long term goals in mind, you will get through it and even enjoy it. The greats get to a point where not only do they enjoy work, but they crave it and feed off of it. The result of sincere, hard work is almost always positive. No matter how you apply it.
People need structure. The modern world is often confusing and overwhelming. Any one individual may be juggling a family, a career, and more. Sport is an opportunity to put aside distractions and focus on something that is intrinsically meaningful. It provides structure in a chaotic world.
-Ernest Thompson, December 2016