Here’s Why Women Who Play Sports Are More Successful

Here’s Why Women Who Play Sports Are More Successful

An article by Beth Brooke-Marciniak on Fortune.com

You can read this article in its entirety here:
Here’s Why Women Who Play Sports Are More Successful

TSI’s Director of Softball, Michele Hawkins-McHenry would like to share her thoughts on why women playing sports is so important!

This is a no-brainer for me. Of course, women who played sports growing up and into college are more successful! How else do you get the experience of teamwork and leadership, let alone the competitive drive to be better than you were the day before? I’m sure that there are other ways to develop those traits, but why not have fun and get dirty while you’re at it.

The Research

A few things stood out to me from this article. Yes, the research study done at Michigan State’s Youth Sport Institute that found that girls who play sports past the age of 13 are more likely to graduate from college and be employed in male-dominated industries. The thing that surprises me was that 94% of the corporate businesswomen in the research study played sports growing up. Now that’s an impressive statistic!

The Lessons From Losing

Another takeaway from this article was about the lessons from losing. It is well worth re-quoting, “Something happens when girls play sports — they embody the experience of not just of winning, but the critical experience of losing. It’s that process of carrying on and clearing hurdles that really builds confidence. It’s an incredibly useful proving ground for business and leadership.” Continue to encourage your children to keep at it.

Softball is a sport of failure. The best hitters fail almost 70% of the time.  This testament shows how many hurdles must be cleared to have that kind of confidence in our sport. Because of this failure, the times when the athlete succeeds become that much sweeter.   The success is worth every moment of work that goes into getting better. The payoff will be confident and determined women who have what it takes to pick themselves back up.   These women will get back to it when life or work throws them a curveball – pun intended.

Personal Experience

The last part of this article that I found relevant, was the author’s own experience.  She was a student-athlete and received significant support from her family. Our TSI families invest so much of their time, money, and energy for our TSI girls and boys. There is not a single person in my group of successful adult friends who did not have that family member who made their athletic careers possible. Even those who did not go on to compete in college have stories to tell of the lessons they learned from playing sports growing up. So keep up the great work, parents, and families, our girls depend on it!