Sports Are More Than Just Games

Sports are more about life than just about playing a game. Sports teach children how to work together, they give people something to look forward to and they give the people playing them a sense of value or worth. Sports aren't just about winning a game, they are about winning in life. The New York Times had an article about a day school in Tennessee operated by the Carrol County Juvenile Court, Carrol Academy. Online the the Times had posted an audio slideshow that reaches out from the computer screen and clutches a readers heart in its grasp.

The Lady Jaguars

This slideshow introduces you to a coach and players that you may never have had interest in and lets you know how important sports can be. With the use of natural sound, it brings you into the games and locker rooms. With its images of not only the basketball play but of the security within the school, of the struggles some of the girls face and the emotion shared between them all; It holds you close and shows that some of those delinquent kids you drive by on your way to work with a scowl on your face and disgust in your mind aren't what you think they are. In a brief time and through this slideshow you are introduced to troubled young ladies living hard lives, that just needed someone to give them hope. They had nothing and no one, but thanks to the Carrol Academy they leave with hope and a sense of camaraderie and accomplishment.

This is news to us all because most of us wouldn't have agreed with or thought a good idea to have children sentenced to juvenile facilities play organized sports against local high schools. This slideshow gives emotion to the Times' article and opens peoples eyes to the humanity of these young girls. They did an excellent job at taking us from just seeing some basketball players to seeing troubled young ladies on a journey from hardship, with the use of sports, to a sense of redemption.

We saw that for these girls winning on the court wasn't the only goal, winning in life was.