Beyond the Medal: Building Character Education and Opportunity Through Sport

Medals are won in moments. Character is built over years. The strongest sports programs treat the second as seriously as the first.

By: Brian Taylor, Senior Basketball and Athlete Development Correspondent

Family First News Desk  |  Where Sports and Education Go Hand in Hand

Strong youth-sports programs connect coaching, character, education and opportunity.

Young basketball players working together with a coach during a practice or game.

The Olympic Games celebrate medals. The families who send their children to a youth sports program are looking for something different.

They want their children to learn how to show up, how to work with others, how to lose without being broken by it and how to win without losing perspective. In other words, they want character.

The evidence suggests that character is not a by-product of sport. It is something programs have to build on purpose.

Consider what the 1984 Los Angeles Games left behind. The Olympic surplus of $232.5 million funded the LA84 Foundation, which has invested more than $225 million in Southern California youth sports. Its work goes beyond equipment and fields. The International Olympic Committee describes it as an organization that supports youth sports and public education on the role of sport in positive youth development, and it has trained tens of thousands of youth sports coaches.

That is a deliberate design choice. Funding coaches, not only facilities, recognizes that the adult in the room shapes the experience.

At Family First Foundation, which publishes this desk, our own experience points the same way. For 26 years, the Foundation has worked with young people, families and schools. The common thread is simple: children do best when sport and education are connected.

Make the lessons explicit. Honesty, effort, teamwork and responsibility should be named and practiced, not assumed.

Measure what matters. Attendance, grades, college readiness and the number of trained coaches are all measurable. A program that tracks them knows whether it is working.

Connect sport to opportunity. The best programs open doors: mentors, scholarships, internships and a path to the next step.

The Games will come to Los Angeles in 2028. The athletes will win medals. The measure of a legacy is the number of young people who leave a program with something that does not fit on a podium.

Disclosure: Family First Foundation publishes Family First News Desk and runs youth sports and education programs in Los Angeles. Brian Taylor is the Foundation’s Director of Sports and Education.