The TCA has had a couple of inquiries this month about the article that ran in December’s Tuscany Sun about Football Ready’s football camp for kids ages 8-12. The camp is being held in January and information can be found on the Football Ready site or you can email Jason or Gord your questions. For your information, we’ve posted the article below.
Why Football?
With dollars and time for kids activities stretched, the decision about what sport or activity to put kids in can be a tough one. In Canada, where hockey is our national sport, football is often overlooked by parents, but it has been gaining popularity in recent years. Currently over 6,000 kids participate in Calgary amateur football; up from 1,500 in the early 90s. We think football offers many benefits to kids. Here are just a few.
Life Skills. As in life, preparation, sacrifice and dedication are essential to success in the sport of football. Preparation involves learning plays inside and out, using practice and repetition. Sacrificing in football can mean many things, from the time spent practicing away from friends and family to showing courage and taking an important block to help a teammate make a play. Dedication means sticking to the sport even when success seems to come slowly. These skills, once learned on the football field, can be easily translated into school work, other sports, and all other areas of life.
Builds confidence and self-esteem. Every BODY can play football. In every school there is the proverbial bigger kid that gets picked last in Phys Ed class. Football provides an avenue for that child, with dedication, to be looked at as a valuable member of the team. This can be more difficult in other sports.
Fosters teamwork and discipline. In football, each player must understand his or her assignments and execute each play consistently, every time, in order for the team to be successful. This drives home the idea of “if you do your job at the highest level, no matter the challenge, and trust others to do the same, we will succeed.”
Community centric. Football seems to bring communities together. Examples range from the Calgary Stampeders, who, both individually and as a team give back to the community in countless ways, to the local high school football team that dedicates a few days a year to raking leaves at the seniors’ homes in the neighbourhood and collects winter jackets for the less fortunate.
Dynamic fitness. Football fitness requires cardiovascular endurance, stamina, strength, flexibility, power, speed, agility, balance, coordination, and accuracy. Also all of these fitness domains translate to all sports making them valuable on and off the football field.
So, whether you are looking for a new activity or looking to round out your child’s athletic endeavours, football may be the sport for you!
Jason Swanson and Gord Stifanyk
Jason Swanson and Gord Stifanyk run a developmental football camp for kids ages 8-12 that starts in January.