Sports are a good way to meet new people, get in shape, have fun, whatever you want to do. In every sport you are going to have to work though. You are going to be pushed and the best way to be encouraged is to flat out run.

     Everybody loves running, so why not have it as a way to make you want to work harder? By running up and down the court or field for an hour and a half or however long your coach feels it is necessary, it can make you and your team so much better. It is definitely going to help your team win games.

     The players never are tired and sore the next day and they never get hurt. It is a win-win situation. It also just brings the team closer together and does not bring any animosity towards the coaches. If you have not tried it you definitely should. It makes perfect sense and will always boost your love for the sport you are playing.

     No – none of this is true.

     If you do play sports then you will know everything I just said is a complete lie. Running to encourage athletes does not make any sense whatsoever. It only makes players hate what they are doing and not want to do anything. Running for encouragement is very different than running for conditioning. I can see running to get in some sort of shape or as punishment but to run just because is a waste of time. If your team is struggling, why would you run instead of working on the things that your team is struggling at? That is why it is obviously called practice. To work on things. If I wanted to run I would join the track or cross country team.

     Running does not make teams win either. It only increases stamina and not necessarily the kind of stamina that is specific to any sport. I am pretty positive Usain Bolt would not do to well in the NBA even though he is the fastest man in the world. Making your team’s skills better and getting them to work hard together usually helps a little more than running suicides and gassers.

     I do not get what goes through a coach’s mind sometimes. There are only maybe two or three sports in which running actually does make your team better. I have never played in sport in which I had to run stop, touch a line, turn around run back, stop, touch that line, run back the other way and so on. That does not happen. I cannot even think of some ridiculous situation in a game in which this would go on.

     The best thing running will do for a team is hurt your players. If you want your players to be sore and fatigued and even injured, then be my guest and run them until the cows come home. If you want to actually win some games and have a chance at competing with other teams, don’t make your team try and be able to keep up with the Jamaican sprint team.