Sports teach life lessons at Boys & Girls Club
Jul. 1—As one of its core values, the Cliff Hagan Boys & Girls Club emphasizes fostering healthy lifestyles — and for a city as sports-crazed as Owensboro, athletic activities play a vital role in that development.
Along with offering programming centered around academic success, as well as good character and citizenship, the club uses sports as a way to keep them active and continue teaching valuable life lessons.
"During the summer, we run a lot of activities," said Director of Program Services Katharine Francis. "We're constantly doing kickball and Wiffle ball and other things. We run some mini-camps, as far as our soccer program goes, with the help of some facilitators from SportsTutor. We also run programs such as Healthy Habits, and that just goes into the importance of keeping a healthy balance — being active, drinking water, eating the right food.
"We obviously want our kids to be active and stay active in some sort of physical activity, just because the obesity rate nowadays is extremely high in youth. We want to make sure our members are staying active and live a healthy lifestyle, so that way they can prosper and be healthy overall."
This summer, they've partnered with Dannheiser Fund for Kids, a non-profit organization that teaches kids about healthy habits, fitness and lifestyle choices. Once someone completes the program, they'll be awarded with a free pair of tennis shoes for the upcoming school year.
On Friday, some of the club's members took a field trip to the Boys & Girls Club of Hopkinsville-Christian County to participate in the BGC Kentucky Summer Games Festival.
Every winter, the Cliff Hagan Boys & Girls Club — which also has locations in Henderson, Ohio County and Butler County — offers youth basketball leagues, and they depend on volunteers like SportsTutor or the River City Pickleball Club to come and teach about various activities.
And, as part of an annual fundraiser, the Mike Horn Unit in Owensboro hosts the Steak & Burger Dinner, in which a well-known athlete or coach will come to speak at the club.
"We do a lot of career exploration through the Boys & Girls Club, and we want to give our kiddos as many options as possible as far as a career goes," Francis said. "We do a lot of things locally, like banks or dentistry or other businesses, to offer a wide variety of careers. The Steak & Burger lets us focus on the sports side because kids in sports are looking to go to the NBA or play professionally. We want them to see that and see how hard it is to get to that point — and not just hear it from us all the time — about working hard, doing well in school and things like that. We always have a great turnout.
"Sports are huge in these kids' lives, especially in Owensboro. We are very sports-oriented here."
The lessons that come with playing sports are also invaluable, said Cliff Hagan Boys & Girls Club CEO Steve Winkler.
"You learn a lot of different things," he said. "You learn to respect your teammates, you learn to respect your coach, you make sure you're able to build team morale and how to be a good teammate, and then you learn sportsmanship with how to win and how to lose. If they learn those lessons through sports, they'll carry on through life in everything they do.
"If you can reach kids through sports, whether it's tiddlywinks or basketball or kickball, those are life lessons."
And it wouldn't be possible without support from the community.
"We want to expose the Boys & Girls Club as much as possible in a positive way," Francis said. "The kids love it when the local colleges like Kentucky Wesleyan come. SportsTutor actually offered to volunteer their time to run some small soccer mini-camps once a week for three or four weeks. We have a lot of community help."
