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"Transforming People & Communities from the Inside Out."

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published April 19, 2010

Life Lessons Through Sports

Matt Harris
Youth Sports Program

Matt is a volunteer coach with Breakthrough’s youth sports leagues. Once a week during football and basketball seasons, he helps his team prepare for and play a game. More importantly, Matt helps to develop positive values in the kids. “I usually focus on attitude, effort and teamwork as we talk about the day and look forward to the next week,” he says.

It’s not always easy. A couple of years ago, one of his teams struggled with a lot of challenges. He shared James 1:2 with them as they talked about dealing with adversity. The verse says “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds…” One day, a boy from Matt’s team was taken to the hospital in critical condition after he was accidentally hit in the head by a brick. It was a tense couple of hours. “I remember getting the guys together with the other coach on our team and praying for him," says Matt. "A week before, these guys were fighting about who was taking more shots or not passing the ball enough. So it was great to see them come together to pray that God would save their teammate’s life. God did miraculously heal him, and he was able to recover from the injuries.”

Lessons of hard work, positive attitude and teamwork do pay off. Another season, Matt’s football team was in the playoffs against another team whose defensive line was twice their size: a modern version of David versus Goliath. On top of that, the usual quarterback was out with an injury. “The guys really pulled together everything we talked about all season," he says. "They put out their best effort and played as a team. The game was tied through three or four overtimes. While we eventually lost on a controversial call, I had never been prouder of the guys and the way they played. They really played like champions and will always know they gave their best effort that day.”

Matt loves to help the youth on his team learn skills that make a difference off the field and in their lives. “It sometimes takes almost the whole season to see any progress, but watching the change in attitude and seeing guys on the team develop as leaders is awesome.”