Sports Center

So I'm stealing a blog post idea from one of the secondary student essays I referenced earlier. When asked the benefits of attending the camp, the student spoke about the importance of sports and games. In his opinion, sports help promote peace. If you play sports, firstly, you are improving your body and releasing some wonderful endorphins. But secondly, and more importantly, you are improving the relationship between you and the person you are playing with. Whether on the same team or on the opposing team, playing sports with someone eliminates differences and gives you an opportunity to come together, learn from each other and respect each other.

This magical power has most easily been seen during the Olympics. There is something beautiful and awe inspiring about all the different countries coming together to share something as peaceful as sports.

This leads me to a question asked to me many, many days ago. (I had at one point made a video answering people's questions but the video would never load and not wanting to transcribe myself, I deleted it.) Similar to the Olympics, the World Cup is amazing for its ability to connect and break barriers as well. World Cup fever is bigger than anything I've ever seen. Such lighthearted joy. Yes, of course the World Cup is very serious when your favorite team is playing but overall I'd call it an innocent, well-meaning happiness. Every night I would fall asleep to my neighbors gathering around a radio to listen to the games. I would eat breakfast while watching replays of the most important moments in the previous days' games. The best small talk topic of the day was about the World Cup. Since Rwanda didn't participate in the World Cup, everyone had picked their loyalty to another country…and not all to South Africa as you would assume. Watching people watch the World Cup was like a mix of small children on Christmas morning and chasing after the ice cream truck because you might miss out on a treat.

The student was right. There is something unifying and wonderful about sports.

I'd also argue that there are many racial and economic divisions among sports in the United States -sports that are predominantly played by one ethnicity or another, sports that are so expensive to play that it leaves many out. But when you boil the essence of sports down to its most fundamental, it still holds the power to change the world.