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Along with more than 5,000 other celebrants, this writer attended the opening ceremonies of the first-ever Winter Goodwill Games. Debuting in 1986, the Goodwill Games were created by Turner Broadcasting to unite the world’s best athletes in an atmosphere free from political rivalries and to promote global understanding.The theme of the opening ceremonies was the Power of Sports.

The idea was to recognize in various choreographed ways that sports play a valuable role in society and that healthy competition is an important element in character development.
One of the presentations on the playbill was the awarding of the ten winners of an essay contest sponsored by the Goodwill Games and the New York State Lottery.

The program was targeted to the impressionable group of sixth, seventh, and eighth graders across New York state and was called the Winter Achievers Writing Contest.
The children were asked to describe how sports have had a positive influence in their lives. Each winner received a computer and laptop. The winners’ schools also received a $1,000 credit for computer equipment.

One of these winners was 15-year-old Vickie Cook of South Kortright, N.Y. Her essay is representative of the other entries and personifies the spirit of the Goodwill Games.
That essay is presented below in this week’s column in the hope that readers young (especially) and old will find it both inspirational and interesting.
Vickie wrote:
“Use the talents you possess, for the woods would be very silent if no birds sang except the best.” A lot of my classmates, when encouraged to join sports, say something like, “I’m not good enough at this sport; I’ll make a total fool out of myself.” That’s when this quote seems to make good sense. It also reminds me when I’ve had a particularly bad game to say to myself that it’s just a game, and that I’ll make up for it by trying even harder the next game.
Playing sports over the years has affected me in so many different ways. When I was younger I used to play for the fun of it, for something to do. Now it’s gotten more serious. It’s a whole team effort. If someone doesn’t show up for a practice, she lets the whole team down. Being on a team makes everyone feel important, like they’re actually making a difference.
I’ve played basketball all my life. When I was in third grade, there was a program for third through sixth graders to play every Saturday at school. It was really good for us to get out and do something healthy. It also gave us experience that would help us later on in our sports career. The coaches were all volunteers; no one was getting paid to help us out. We learned the basic skills: dribbling, shooting, pivoting, etc. I played this for all three years that I was eligible to do so. I got a sense of how the game was played.

Ever since Junior High started, I’ve played basketball, soccer, and softball, the three main sports our school participates in.

Soccer has had a huge effect on my life. Soccer requires responsibility, consistency, teamwork, and extreme fitness. During my soccer career, while I was in seventh grade, I had a huge setback. I was diagnosed with exercise-induced asthma. For the rest of the season I couldn’t participate in any exercise whatsoever.

Softball was a true adventure for me in seventh grade. I never had played before, never worn a glove, or thrown a ball. The whole team was new, even our coach. We had to start from the very beginning of how to throw a ball, how to catch a ball, what part of the glove to catch the ball in, etc. She started out in a unique way: playing kick ball. She said that the two had basically the same rules, and since we knew how to play kick ball, this would help us out a lot and it sure did. We had only one game, but we played hard and we learned a lot. We learned how to be a team. That was our goal and we reached it.

By the end of the season we were probably more than ten times better than when we started out. It was evident that this season had changed every one of us in so many ways. I learned more about everyone on the team. I became a best friend of one of the teammates. We all learned responsibility and discipline. My grades went up. I had more of a positive outlook on life itself. When my social life wasn’t going good, I looked forward to the softball practice that afternoon. I took my anger out during that time. That anger would work with me and help me throw the ball harder, run like I was in a race, and be so much more determined.

I came to a particularly hard time in my life during this season. With a personal problem, I didn’t know where to turn. I felt comfortable with my coach and so I went to her. She was there for me and we talked and she made me laugh and by the end of the day I was feeling a lot better. What a great relationship to have between a coach and player. When everyone works together the success is unimaginable.

Has sports changed my life? Of course, it has. I work harder now, have goals that I set for myself, and I accomplish them. I cooperate better with other people, I set up strategies that work. I have great accomplishments along with the setbacks. I manage my work better. I learned that academics come before sports, but also that sports help with academics. In short, sports shape a person’s life. I would be so much different without sports in my life.

As Robert Frost said, “The road diverted into two different paths and I chose the one less traveled and it’s made all the difference.”