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Many experience great anxiety or isolation because of the intense pressure to perform and the training-traveling schedules they follow, he said. 메이저사이트

FOCUS’ work with athletes aims to spiritually “support them amidst this intensity” so they know that God “helps them have peace and hope and flourish as a whole person,” body, mind and soul, he said.

Having their identity be rooted in being a beloved child of God and not just being a star athlete also helps students if they suffer injury or eventually leave sports when they start careers, he added.

Jesuit Father Patrick Kelly, professor at University of Detroit Mercy, told CNS that lots of young people drop out of sports because “it’s not fun anymore” with too much emphasis on winning, getting noticed for scholarships or overuse injuries from doing one sport year-round.

Dr. Joseph Dutkowsky, an orthopedic surgeon from Cooperstown, New York, home of the National Baseball Hall of Fame, told CNS he once challenged professional ballplayers to do more to help physically and mentally challenged fans.

“I told them, ‘It’s really great that you guys have handicapped seating for your stadiums and it’s no longer behind the post or next to the bathrooms,’” he said. “But that’s not enough. ‘These kids need to be on the field with you because they are just as competitive as you are’” and they want to experience it for themselves.

Players jumped at the chance, he said, and now, each year they have six former major league baseball players come to Doubleday Field to teach baseball to about 50 children and adults.

Dr. Dutkowsky saw the same enthusiasm and joy in elite dancers from the New York City Ballet when the company asked him to help start a free program that lets kids with physical disabilities, particularly cerebral palsy, learn the beauty of movement from its dancers and live piano accompaniment.

The greatest impact is on the dancers, he said, who discover the joy of celebrating what the kids can do.

The dancers and ballplayers “fight over” who gets to work with the kids, he said, and when he asked them why, “they said, ‘these kids don’t judge us.’” The kids “let them express and live their passion and enjoy it for what it is.”

Dancing or throwing a ball “becomes a blessing, instead of a job,” Dr. Dutkowsky said.

“The drive to be humanly perfect is killing our kids right now, giving them anxiety, depression and addiction,” he said; people should be encouraged to be perfectly human, instead.