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Sports in Movies

Everyone loves a good sports movie. It keeps you on the edge of your seat during the climax and has you cheering for the heroes. But it can also teach everyone, young and old, valuable life lessons. Some we may have forgotten and some new lessons that we never learned.

Participation in sports teaches many things. It teaches perseverance, sportsmanship, working together as a team, and working hard to achieve your goals. It teaches you to never quit. Valuable lessons that we all need in life.

Sports movies transcend the Vince Lombardi idea of "winning isn't everything, it's the only thing." They veer more toward losing with grace and winning with even more grace. In a sports movie, you won't see the heros (winning team) saying "in your face, we won." They win with dignified sportsmanship. You also see them lose gracefully. They show their dejection, yet put on the brave face and congratulate the winner.

In every sports movie, there's always some kind of obstacle to overcome. In the movie "Rocky 3", Rocky has to overcome the death of his beloved manager, Mickey. In "Remember the Titans", the team has to overcome racial issues surrounding the school. But somehow, the movie always seems to move past these issues and have the hero or heroes coming through victorious. That is the lesson of hard work and perseverance.

We all know that real life isn't like it is in the movies. Some obstacles are much more difficult to overcome than others. But sports movies make us feel good and make us cheer. We finish watching them with a renewed spirit. We laugh, cry, and even get angry at a 'botched' call from an official. Who didn't cry when Brian Piccolo dies at the end of "Brian's Song"? Who didn't cheer when Rocky won back the tital from Clubber Lange in "Rocky 3"?

In the end, what people learn from sports movies is entirely up to them. We hope that our children will learn sportsmanship, team spirit, and confidence. Sports movies can accomplish those tasks. Even in the controversy of illegal steroids in real-life sports, we still look to sports movies to uplift us and make us remember the true meaning of sportsmanship and self-confidence.