Extracurriculars teach valuable life lessons

I was born and raised in Sandpoint, and played soccer throughout my career at SHS. My sport gave me an organized way to be competitive against peers, and soccer enabled me to attend Gonzaga University.

Recently returning to coach and teach at SHS, I still strongly believe that extracurricular activities at the high school level are crucial in creating healthy adults.

Sports provide life lessons, in simplified terms. The lessons of sports coupled with academics better prepare students for the working world. The parallels are easy to see: a strong work ethic, time management, teamwork and being held accountable are just a few.

According to a study by Dr. Douglas Hartmann at the University of Minnesota, “Research has time and again demonstrated a strong and positive correlation between high school sports participation and academic achievement. This basic, baseline finding holds for a wide variety of measures and on a whole range of data sets, methodological approaches, and social conditions.”

Keep extracurriculars in our schools: Please vote yes for the levy on March 12.

CONOR BARANSKI

Sandpoint