In The Arena
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.
In addition to being a sweet Teddy Roosevelt quote, In The Arena is also a not for profit organization that seeks to improve the lives of today's youths by bringing them into contact with elite athletes in their community. In The Arena believes that elite athletes can serve as powerful role models because of their achievements, charisma, and society's obsession
I'm psyched to announce that I'm joining ITA's team of athletes! Since returning from the Lake Placid camp I've been volunteering in a local Elementary school.
ITA is an amazing organization with an incredibly simple, yet effective business plan. If you were interested in donating money somewhere and wanted to help support elite athletes but ALSO wanted to make a meaningful contribution to society ITA is a fantastic means of accomplishing both goals. In terms of benefit, there's multiple layers-- the community benefits from increased interaction between adults and youth, the youth benefit from having fantastic role models, the athletes benefit financially as well as those intangible benefits from volunteering. It's probably the most efficient system for allocating resources that I've found supporting athletics. And if you're an athlete (with some preliminary requirements like having a college degree) you can look into applying-- I think it's one of the most fulfilling sources of income as an athlete.
If you want to find out more about In The Arena there's great information on the ITA website.
posted by LAV at 13:12
2 Comments:
Sounds great. I hope that ITA athletes are able to convey the message that kids need to win the game in the Arena of Life. And that sports are indeed, only a game. Perhaps only 1 out of 100,000 kids will be able to make a career out of athletics. As the middle class in the US disappears, there is becoming more of a defined line in the sand between the haves and the have-nots. It’s getting to be an increasingly bad deal in the US to be on the side of the arena where the have-nots are. So while kids can become infatuated with athletes, they need to constantly be reminded that sports-life inside the arena is cool yet superficial. Their sports heroes need to tell them they need the education and skills to survive outside the arena, where they will be most of their lives.
yep, yep. And I think all of the athletes stress that they have college diplomas and lots of skills outside of athletics.
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