Throughout my high school career athletics have had a major impact on my experiences and have shaped me into the person I am today. High school sports have taught me some of the most important and valuable lessons in life. Sports have illustrated life in many ways by not only subjecting me to success and victory, but also by putting me through adversity and defeat. Some of the most valuable lessons athletics have brought to me can be summed up in one quote by the legendary Vince Lombardi. Lombardi said, “It’s not whether you get knocked down; it’s whether you get up.” I believe that some of the greatest things that I have learned through sports have been imparted upon me after I experienced some sort of adversity, great or small. I have been able to accept the fact that life is not always fair and that the only way to achieve success is through hard work and perseverance. Another lesson that I have learned through athletics is that nothing worth achieving can be achieved without working hard. High school sports not only require hard work in season, but also many months of hard work and sweat in the off-season. Great success can only be achieved when months of hard work finally pay off. Awards and titles in sports, …show more content…
Similar to adversity, success is much easier to manage with the support of a team. Individual success can lead a person to be conceited, but teammates serve as a barrier to help you walk the line between confidence and arrogance. Learning how to be confident in yourself without crossing the line into arrogance is a tremendously large part of learning to deal with success. Athletics have also taught me that satisfaction can lead to complacency and complacency leads to failure. I have learned how to celebrate a success while recognizing and remaining critical of my own mistakes. By doing this, I am able to continually better myself as a person and an