Football is more than just a sport. It can teach valuable life lessons to help us throughout our lives. Here’s a list of 10 life lessons that football can teach you:
1. Work hard, play smart
Let’s start our list of life lessons off with a bit of a no-brainer. As you already know, football is a difficult and complex game. That’s why it can teach us so many important life lessons. In order to be successful at it you have to work hard, both on the practice field and especially during games. It’s not enough to merely work hard, though. You also need to play smart. This means that off the field you need to watch tape, study playbooks, and learn as much about the game as you can. Then you need to take all the knowledge you acquired and apply it to your game when you’re back on the field.
Life is also difficult and complicated. You need to work hard in order to succeed, regardless of what it is that you do. You definitely need to work smart too because life is even more complex than football. Hence why life lessons are so valuable. The more you know about whatever it is that you do, the greater your odds of succeeding. You need to read, take courses, watch videos, talk to people, and scour around for any other source of information that will help you do it more effectively and efficiently. In life, as in football, the road to success starts with hard work.
2. Be a team player
Football is a team sport. To be good at it, you need to be willing to sacrifice individual glory or desires for the good of the team. As a quarterback, no matter how much you might like to pass, you can’t be throwing the ball if the team would be better served by having you hand it off to a running back. Likewise, when playing wide receiver, if you don’t have the ball on a particular play, you need to be blocking for a teammate who does. Remember, when that final whistle blows, the better your team does, the better off you’ll be.
Life is a team sport too. Sooner or later your success will depend on your ability to work well with others. You need to step outside of yourself and think about the team you belong to. What is the purpose of your group? What are you trying to achieve together? What’s your role?
You also need to consider your teammates. What are their goals and aspirations? Their strengths and weaknesses? Likes and dislikes? How can you best mesh your individual strengths, weaknesses and preferences so that you optimize the way you operate as a team? In the end, the more successful your group is, the better off you’ll be. This is one of the life lessons on our list that translates to everything.
3. Don’t run with the ball until you’ve caught it
How often have you heard a football commentator say, “He couldn’t hang onto the football because he started running with it before he had control”? One of the keys to being a successful receiver is that you need to be totally focused on catching the ball before you start running with it.
In the excitement and pressure of the game, there’s a great temptation to start running with the ball as soon as you feel it touch your hands. This is a big mistake! A pass is not completed until you have possession. Once that ball makes contact with your fingertips, your attention needs to be completely focused on securing it before you start running.
Life is the same way. Don’t start something until you’ve successfully finished all previous, dependent tasks. For example, if you run with an idea before you fully grasp it, you’ll look unprepared when faced with adversity. If you start implementing your idea and it doesn’t work properly, people may start questioning your competence. This is not a formula for success. Finish the job at hand before moving on to the next one.
4. Be good at everything and great at something
It’s next to impossible for a football team to win championships if they have a glaring weakness, or if there isn’t even one thing that they’re good at doing. An example of the first case is the 2006 Chicago Bears. They were a well-balanced team. They had a phenomenal kick returner in Devin Hester, their defense was excellent, they had two quality running backs, and both their defensive and offensive lines were solid.
The only glaring chink in their armor was their quarterback, Rex Grossman, who was exceptionally inconsistent. At times, he played extremely well and seemed to be flirting with greatness. Other times he seemed completely inept. This one flaw that the team chose to overlook that season ended up costing them The Big One. The things they were great at helped them get into the Super Bowl. Unfortunately for the team, Rex fumbled the game away. At least they won the NFC Championship, though. There’s not a single team that comes to mind that was able to win a championship without being great in at least one thing.
The same principle applies in life. If you have a weakness, sooner or later it’s going to cost you. If you’re not great at something, it’s going to be hard for you to thrive. You need to know yourself. Know your strengths and weaknesses. Play to your strengths, but don’t ignore your weaknesses. Work on eliminating them so that they don’t become an opening through which failure can sneak up on you.
5. Play through the pain
Football is a contact sport and a very rough one at that. You can be sure that at one point or another you’re going to get hurt. If you want to keep playing, you’re just going to have to suck it up and play hurt. Everyone who plays the game knows this and does this.
Life is rough too. It’s full of dangers that threaten your safety and well-being. Invariably, at one point or another, you’re going to get hurt. However, you can’t let the pain of life stop you from doing the things that you need to do in order to succeed. It’s best to accept the fact that life is going to throw a fair share of pain your way and just keep forging ahead when it does. Overcoming hurdles is one of the most valuable life lessons you can learn.
6. Keep your opponent honest, balance your attack
It’s hard for a football team to be successful if they have a one-dimensional attack. If your team has a great passing game but your running game is useless, it’s going to be very difficult for you to win consistently. You’ll become predictable. Sooner or later, your opponents will adjust their defenses in response. Not only that, but you’re also limiting your options. There are situations where it just makes a lot more sense to run the ball rather than to pass it. If it’s fourth and one and you need to go for it, your odds of converting the first down are much lower if you pass than if you run; especially if your opponent knows that you’re going to pass.
Life is like that too. It will constantly put you in situations where you have to compete with others. If you become predictable because there’s only one thing that you can do well, you hand your competitors a great advantage. If, on the other hand, you keep them on their toes by mixing things up, you give them more to think about. This makes life harder for them and makes it easier for you to be more effective with the things that you do really well.
7. Defense wins championships
This life lesson has become a cliché now, probably because it’s been shown to be true time and again. Think 2000 Baltimore Ravens, or 2002 Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Both had great defenses and lackluster offenses. Both won the Super Bowl. In fact, the 1972 Miami Dolphins, the only team in the NFL to have a perfect season, won the lowest scoring Super Bowl of all time by playing phenomenal defense.
At the other end of the spectrum, “The Greatest Show on Turf,” as the 1999-2001 St. Louis Rams were called, affirms this. They had the best offense going, bar none. They still stand as the only team in the NFL to score more than 500 points in 3 consecutive seasons. No other team has even done it 2 seasons in a row. Yet, even they couldn’t win the Super Bowl without a good defense.
In 1999, when the Rams had one of the top-rated defenses in the league, they won the Super Bowl. In fact, it was a defensive play, now simply know as “The Tackle,” that preserved the win for them. Fox Sports goes as far as ranking it the all-time best clutch play of any Super Bowl. In 2000, when their defense was ranked second worst in the NFL, they barely made the playoffs and then got eliminated in the first round. In 2001, when they once again had a top-rated defense, they returned to the Super Bowl.
The same principle applies in life. You need to have a good defense to protect yourself against the many dangers that life will throw your way, be it thieves trying to break into your house, salesmen selling you products or services of dubious value, diseases trying to ravage your body, or viruses attacking your computer. If you don’t take appropriate and reasonable measures to protect yourself, you’ll eventually lose at the game of life.
8. Offense wins fans
While defense might be necessary for winning championships, it’s generally pretty boring for the fans. Sure, it’s great to win championships, but it’s also great to be remembered for the exciting things you accomplished. Which team do you think got more attention, the 2000 Baltimore Ravens or the 2000 St. Louis Rams? Which name do you think more people recognize, Ray Lewis or Kurt Warner?
Life works the same way. You won’t inspire others or build a great reputation if your only preoccupation is to protect yourself. You make a name for yourself by going out there and accomplishing something impressive.
9. Have fun
Football is a game. Games are supposed to be fun. The best teams seem to be the ones whose players look like they’re having fun playing the game. There are a couple of reasons for this. First, pleasure is a great natural motivator. If you enjoy doing something, you’re much more inclined to spend time doing it. The more time you spend doing something, the more likely you are to be good at it. The better you are at something, the greater your odds of succeeding at it.
Second, having fun makes you more relaxed. It’s hard to perform at your peak potential if you’re too tense or nervous. You can’t think as clearly and you don’t respond as quickly to what’s going on around you.
This holds true in life as well as in football. If you don’t enjoy life, chances are you won’t be successful. Find your passion and follow it. Don’t allow yourself to become overly burdened by your responsibilities. Don’t ignore them, by any means, but when you just have to do something, find a way to make it as pleasant as possible. Loosen up once in a while. Just have fun doing what you do and the people that you do it with. This may be the most important of these 10 life lessons. Enjoying what you do is extremely important to a happy life.
10. Play to win
The objective of football is to win by scoring more points than the other team. Can you imagine a football game where neither team cared whether they won or lost? Can you see the players on either of those teams pushing themselves to make the kind of plays that make football such an exciting sport? A whole layer of emotional intensity would be missing. It would be a pretty boring game, wouldn’t it? Boring to play and even more boring to watch.
Life, like football, is better, richer and more exciting when we play to win.
This one goes hand in hand with number nine on our list of 10 life lessons. Winning isn’t everything, nor is it the only thing; but it sure is a lot more fun than losing. The more you win, the more fun you have. The more fun you have, the longer you’ll play. The longer you play… well, you get the idea.
So, the next time you are watching a football game with someone who looks up to you, dont hesitate to mention some of these 10 great life lessons being demonstrated right before your very eyes out on that football field.