Teaching Teamwork Through Sports
Posted on March 11th, 2010 by Heidi Russell
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We have been doing organized sports with Lincoln since he was four years old. He loves to play sports and we love keeping him active and fostering his talents.
We have done soccer, basketball, football and baseball. Whil
e living here in Jacksonville, we have enjoyed participating in sports both on and off base. We have had both good experiences and bad experiences. Most importantly, Lincoln always has fun.
We have found that our favorite coaches are on the field playing and practicing with the kids. We like coaches who involve the parents and invite parents to play with the kids. We enjoy coaches who genuinely love sports and love kids.
Lincoln played football on base this past year. On that team we had one of our very favorite coaches. He was a young single marine who loved football and loved kids. You could tell he genuinely loved the boys and teaching them about a sport he loved so much. Most importantly, we loved how he made everything fun. He didn’t get worked up when someone made a mistake. He patted them on the back and gently corrected them. If we could choose coaches for the rest of Lincoln’s years playing organized sports we would want coaches just like him!!
Sports are a great way to keep kids active and teach them about working with others and having fun. It is a great way to teach them good sportsmanship and how we treat others…if they are on our team or aren’t on our team.
As a family, we will probably spend most of our lives in the stands cheering for Lincoln. I surely hope that we keep the process of sports fun while developing a good work ethic and good sportsmanship.
What has your experience been like while having your kids play organized sports?





Socializing with other young people has finally taught the girls a few words that I’m not crazy about. I won’t go into profanities, but just words like hate and phrases like: I’m not your friend anymore, that sucks, and shut up are just a few on the list. I am pretty good at monitoring my own speech in front of the girls; I don’t want them to get it from me. However, I also know that this is just an inevitable stage in the whole scheme of growing up. 

through all the pain of growing their teeth in……..those same teeth fall out! It is such a complicated process.
Well, I finally got a call from my husband on Saturday. I’ll be honest, he was a little on the cranky side; however, I suppose he has a good reason. I’m excited because the weeks are just flying by; thankfully this will all be done and over with before I can blink an eye. I’m already excited and nervous about homecoming. It will be nice to have an adult helper. I can’t imagine how much easier my life will be. Between training up for the deployment and actually deploying, it’s really been close to or over a year since he was home on a routine basis. We haven’t gotten any official word as of yet as it pertains to his return, but that’s pretty typical.