This+I+Believe-O'Donnell



**Importance of Sports** ====Hm, what exactly is it that I believe in most… Well I guess I am supposed to say education, but that happens not to be the case. What I care most about is playing sports. However, I find those two to be somewhat related. The lessons I learned throughout my career playing sports have helped me become such a successful **student**. One might read this and say I am just another dumb jock trying to come up with an excuse about why sports are beneficial. First of all, saying that would just make one ignorant and therefore the dumb one, but I digress. The lessons I learned in sports made me much more **[|discipline]**(example of discipline through sports) and able to [|handle the stress]schoolwork puts on you. ==== ====My senior season of football I was named captain of the team and as you can imagine this put a **tremendous** amount of stress on my shoulders. My coach told me “if you believe in yourself and your teammates, then you can achieve anything”. Sounds a little cliché, but he was absolutely right. This lesson has helped me more in my first semester and a half of college then anything I have ever learned. Going into every test I think to myself, if I believe I’m going to do well on this test, then I will. After having **52 men** rely on you to lead, the stress that a This I Believe paper carries with it just does not get to me anymore. ==== ====I was asked so many times throughout high school, “why do you care so much about sports? It’s not going to get you anything.” Again, the first thing that comes to mind is why do you care about what I do so much, but that’s beside the point. I care about sports so much because it taught me so many life lessons that not only help me in physical activity, but also education. So ask me again, why do I care about sports so much? I care about sports, because I care about education. ====