Having friends in life can vital and beneficial. It's important to have social conections outside of families. There are many benefits. Such benefits include: a sense of belonging; can improve mental health; stress reduction; emotional support and can provides security. This is true in all facets of life, including sports.
Major champion, seven-time PGA Tour winner and Ryder Cup captain, Keegan Bradley’s career CV is already the kind most golfers would take in a heartbeat but that hasn’t stopped the American from harbouring regrets.
Among the biggest of them all is not making friends. "I just came to the course every day and did my job. I felt like having friends was going to hurt me somehow," Bradley said. "That’s something this generation of players don’t do – they’re all friends and it makes life more fun out here … Something I’ve tried to do a lot more of over the last handful of years is to get to know these guys and hang out with them because they’re such great guys."
Just under a year ago, Bradley was licking painful wounds following his surprise omission from Zach Johnson’s Ryder Cup-losing team. Last Sunday, he was toasting victory at the BMW Championship – a tournament he'd qualified for in the last spot on the field – six weeks on from being unveiled as a similarly shocking selection for captain at next year’s biennial competition in New York.
When Bradley was ushered in as the leading man for Bethpage Black in September next year, nobody was more shocked than the man himself.
He said, "I have no idea how it happened. I wasn’t involved in any of the conversations. When I felt the extreme support from the players of me being the captain, it was one of the proudest moments of my life."
Bradley’s pride served as a stark contrast to the intense hurt felt at missing out on last year’s team.
Playing sports enables you to create friendships you otherwise you would've have created. Sport bring teens together from different schools, backgrounds and communities. Many times, the friendships you create on the field remain intact even when you aren't playing sports (Shile & Howard, 2013).
We participate in sport and active recreational opportunities with others because of common interests. Of all the ways we spend our time, recreational activities present the perfect platform for opportunities and foundations for friendship to be built. Generally speaking, work & school environments focus on intelligence and productivity and measurements associated therewith, thereby creating separation or labels. Everybody possesses the ability to have fun, feel fun and to experience fun. It is what people choose to do with their time, it’s where people want to spend their time (Drennan, 2021).
Sport and active recreation settings provides the perfect opportunity to foster friendships for people with disability. Importantly, opportunities for meaningful connection should be created in a way that leads to friendships between peers, both with, and without, disabilities. It doesn't just happen, as with most things, it requires proactive steps by coaches, instructors and administrators alike. It requires creating not only a welcoming and accessible environment for people with disabilities to participate but also requires thoughtful actions to foster authentic peer relationships (Drennan, 2021).
Good friends are good for your health. Friends can help you celebrate good times and provide support during bad times. Friends inhibit loneliness and gives you a reciprocal opportunity to also offer needed companionship. Friends can also increase your sense of belonging and purpose, boost your happiness and reduce your stress. Friends play a significant role in promoting your overall health. Good friends are good for your health (Drennan, 2021).
Friendship is one of the common denominators identified as a reason for why people participate. Whether as a team member or a participant in an individual sport, you have the opportunity to play with, and compete against, peers with whom you share at least one common interest. These usually enjoyable daily interactions can lead to feelings of acceptance that boost self-esteem, making the activity more enjoyable and making youth athletes less likely to quit the sport (Correctmyplay.com, no date).
The shared experiences of: practice sessions; carpooling to games; shared post-game meals and other team activities can go a long way toward building long lasting relationships among team-mates. Friendships are such a compelling reason for sports participation in youth that it is cited as one of the real reasons for the drop-out rate seen as these athletes grow older (Correctmyplay.com, no date).
As friends leave the sporting arena to pursue other interests as teenagers, those athletes who are left behind may feel that some of the enjoyment they got from playing the sport has gone away because their friends are no longer involved. This, in turn, might lead them to drop out as well, especially if they don’t feel particularly comfortable in their new team environments, being unwilling or unable to make new friendships through their continued participation in sport (Correctmyplay.com, no date).
The dropping out of friends is an especially important factor in female sports participation, which decreases more significantly than that of males during the teenage years. Female involvement in sport during the teenage years is heavily dependent on how they are seen by their peers inside and outside of sport, as well as how they think they are viewed by the opposite sex (Correctmyplay.com, no date). .
For many, the opposing feelings of wanting to be fit and look good but also wanting to be viewed as being feminine are influential in their decisions to take part in sport. Depending on the environment in which they compete, their decision to continue participating in sport could diminish their social opportunities because of the image it gives them, influencing them to quit (Correctmyplay.com, no date).
A 2015 study by Street Games surveyed 1 000 young adult females in the UK about their sporting experiences through high school and found that 63% of respondents indicated that they wouldn't participate in sport or other physical activity without a friend by their side. In the same survey, 77% of the girls cited catching up with their friends as a major reason for their participation in sport or exercise These figures show just how powerful friendships are in attracting and keeping teenaged females in sport (Correctmyplay.com, no date).
Friendships in sport are not only created by the presence of a common interest or shared experience, but also through the social skills sport imparts to youth athletes. Sports participation, especially as a member of a team, allows youth athletes to practice skills such as mutual respect, cooperation, providing support and fair play. These are all necessary elements of friendship and are necessary to positive relationships of any nature (Correctmyplay.com, no date).
Sport is also unique in that it's an activity that gives athletes extensive interaction with figures of authority. From the day they begin playing sport, athletes have to deal with coaches and referees/ umpires who facilitate their learning and playing of their chosen sport. The social skills mentioned above also extend to these authority figures and it is these very skills that make student athletes attractive hires for companies and managers (Correctmyplay.com, no date).
There are several reasons why sports provide a good strength booster for your friendship. When you and your team are all working together and playing by the same set of rules, you need to trust each other and as you get to understand one another you play off each other’s strengths. This is a good way to improve the strength of your bond (Menon, 2018).
Sports can be the common thread between your friends and it has the power to bring out a variety of people together. While playing as a team, you are bound to communicate to the members of your team and this can be a small way to boost the bond shared (Menon, 2018).
This will ensure that you’ll have more after the practices, this way will increase both your knowledge of the sport and the ideas in the other person’s head. This can also lead to sharing personal details and hence develop more than just mere surface friends (Menon, 2018).
As you and your friends play a sport, you’ll understand the benefits of giving other people the chance to showcase their own talents. All of this is priceless when it comes to making friends (Menon, 2018).
Friendships are essential in sports. It helps in developing a support structure. There will be emotional support when it's created. Friendships should last for eternity. It's one of the fundamentals of life. Without friendship, everyone would live in isolation and bring along with it, the feelings of lonliness. No one should ever suffer through that feeling.
Reference List
Correctmyplay.com. (no date). Friendships through sports. [online]. Available from: https://correctmyplay.com/friendships-through-sports/. Accessed: 31 August 2024.
Drennan, L. Creating friendships through inclusive sport. [online]. Available from: https://www.inclusivesportdesign.com/blog-posts/creating-friendships-through-inclusive-sport. Accessed: 31 August 2024.
Howard, K. & Shile, M.J. (2013). The benefits of participating in sports. [online]. Available from: https://www.sutterhealth.org/health/teens/sports-fitness/benefits-of-sports. Accessed: 31 August 2024.
Menon, A. (2018). Do sports really strengthen friendship? [online]. Available from: https://blog.playo.co/do-sports-really-strengthen-friendship/. Accessed: 31 August 2024.