Sports can positively impact students in 3 key ways: 1) Sports teach students important life skills like teamwork, leadership, communication and respecting rules which increases confidence and prepares them for success in school and life. 2) There are values learned from team sports like shared goals, individual responsibility, managing challenges, and cooperation that can be applied to student-teacher relationships and learning. 3) Research shows sports provide emotional and social benefits for both boys and girls by offering an outlet for emotions, building mastery and resilience, and helping girls gain more control over their lives.

1. Sports Intervention: Coaching
Students to Win in School and Life
“Sport… spells basic education, character formation and fighting
spirit, allied with respect and discipline.”
-Joseph Blatter
President, Federation of International Football Associations (FIFA)
Prepared for PACE Summit, Orange County Schools, NC
AL Stanback School, April 28, 2011

2. A Sports Frame of Mind
What do you know about sports???
The United Nations has defined it as “all forms of
physical activity that contribute to physical
fitness, mental well-being and social interaction.
These include play; recreation; casual, organized or
competitive sport; and indigenous sports or games.”

3. Sports Basics
Early Childhood- “They touch and hold, reach and shake, grab and taste-
discovering the world…they play…a child’s play forms a solid foundation for a
life of learning”
School-Age Children- “Students learn about taking turns with their
teammates or classmates, sharing, respecting their peers and valuing rules.”
Adolescents- “Sport helps adolescents to develop skills in
communication, negotiation and leadership and to test and improve their
abilities, which increases confidence.”
-unicef 2004 report, sport, recreation and play

4. Sports in the Classroom
There are team sports values and ideas that are transferable to
the teacher/student relationship (parent/child too!):
•Shared goals (connection)
•Individual responsibility (ownership)
•Manage the moment (be clear and direct)
•Teamwork (leadership and cooperation)
•Winning (reward and incentivize learning)

5. Sports in Life
“We can not forget that sport is play, and when it stops
being play, it will have less emotional and social benefit.”
Research states for:
Boys, sports is an emotional outlet, allowing them to show
emotion in a socially sanctioned way, a powerful connective
activity, it provides a sense of mastery, teaching resiliency and
decision making.
Girls, sports helps girls and young women claim their place in
society, it provides them more control over their lives, gaining
more respect for their bodies, personal autonomy, leadership
and challenges stereotypes of weakness.

6. Sports in the Community
•As a community, we have to focus on the process of sport
participation and not the performance outcome.
•Sports can promote family and community involvement in education.
Parents can become active in their children’s education by
participating as coaches and attending after-school matches and
sports events.
•In the absence of formal school structures, sport, recreation and play
can provide a way to educate children during and after tragedy and
emergencies, helping people to heal and make a new start. They can
rehabilitate traumatized children, help redirect at-risk youth and
rebuild community spirit.

7. Questions and Comments
Umar Muhammad, M.S.
Community Coach/Consultant
USports Consulting
www.usportsconsulting.com
umar.usports@gmail.com