Sports programs for young Chicago kids are valuable, but soon could be lost

Sports teach so many life lessons that sports expressions and cliches are used constantly. There’s one for every conversation about success, adversity and the value of teamwork: Keep your eye on the ball, take one for the team, call an audible … You can probably identify five more.

The power of sports and play to teach these life lessons starts early — as soon as children can be brought together in organized activities supervised by caring adults. Studies confirm that sports and play support the social and emotional growth of children, and improve academic performance over the long run (another sports-related metaphor).

I’ve seen the impact through my two decades of work with Urban Initiatives, an organization that creates and manages sports and play activities for thousands of Chicago children. Participants include many young Chicago Public Schools students who might otherwise have no access to school basketball leagues, weekend soccer games or other types of supervised fun. That’s because CPS doesn’t offer organized after-school sports for kids until fifth grade.

I’ve been hopeful about nurturing more children’s healthy development through sports thanks to increased government funding to Illinois schools to address the impact of COVID-19. Some emergency relief funds were available for sports and recreation, which has made meaningful differences in the lives, and happiness, of many children in economically depressed neighborhoods.

That funding is now running out. My colleagues and I at Urban Initiatives are hearing from school administrators that they may need to cut back on sports programming, which means fewer opportunities for kids to be kids, and to learn while they’re playing. As a result, organizations like ours will have to be more reliant on private funding to give kids access to sports, or many will miss out.

The latest budget crunch is another reminder that children’s sports and play in general are undervalued by our society. This has been true for decades given the understandable pressure on school administrators and teachers to emphasize classroom instructions to improve reading and math scores.

Research shows value of sports

Yet research continues to support the value of sports. Several recent studies show how organized sports is associated with improved cognition, higher rates of high school graduation and better physical and mental health — the latter could lead to an estimated $80 billion in savings in direct medical costs and productivity losses.

My team works with children in supervised settings that range from Chicago Park District fields to classrooms during recess.

From our own experience, here are six ways participation in organized sports and play helps raise healthier children:

1. Sports builds successful communities. Or as they say, teamwork makes the dream work. We're all better off as students or co-workers when we share responsibilities and combine individual talents. Sports exemplifies that lesson: I pass the ball to you, you score, we both win. Being able to enjoy group success is what a healthy society looks like.
2. Organized play regulates emotions. Through games, young players learn self-control and the act of reflection, which replace raging in frustration or crying at failure. Sports have rules and coaches who instruct, as well as teammates modeling good behavior.
3. Practice improves skills. Players learn to dribble or shoot a basketball the same way they learn multiplication tables: simple drills and repetition overseen by an instructor. The child who learns a move on the court will bring confidence into the classroom.
4. Hard work is its own reward. Sports teach resilience and drive by encouraging children to push through adversity and outperform expectations. It’s wonderful to see sweaty kids feel good about their effort. Once they’re addicted to this feeling, it will pay dividends throughout life.
5. Good coaching is teaching and mentoring. My organization emphasizes the role of caring adults as trained leaders. We do this not to develop winning teams, but to nurture the social and emotional development of children. Classroom teachers do this too, but the relatability and simplicity of playing games lets our coaches sneak in the lessons.
6. Having fun matters. To us, competition is overrated. Victory may be nice but winning doesn’t need to be emphasized. There's competition everywhere else in life, including the classroom. Chicago’s children need to have more fun and smile as much as possible.

With COVID money drying up, state and local governments must make careful decisions about where to invest limited educational resources. The focus will be on academic learning, of course.

But at this pivotal moment, we can’t ignore the facts. Government agencies, and the private funders whose help is essential, need to step up to the plate. Our kids need reading, writing, sports and play.

Jim Dower is co-founder and executive director of Urban Initiatives. 

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