Childhood. Remember it? You were young and you had your whole life ahead of you. You studied hard in school in order to get into a great college while at the same time keeping active by playing sports which would leave you in the running for a scholarship to one of those great schools you had your heart set on. What if, however, all that was taken away from you? What if your childhood dreams and aspirations became crushed before your very own eyes simply because we all simply had to tighten our belts? How would you feel? Would you feel depressed while you were looking at a crossroads of what exactly to do now that your dreams were suddenly put on hold or possibly harder to achieve?

Recently here in Connecticut, governor Dannel Malloy proposed we slash the funding for any sports at vocational schools in our state which would, quite simply, ban sports from any vocational school for the next two years. A school without sports? Is that even possible? Gone would be many celebrations that bring schools together such as home games. Gone also would be the instillment of teamwork in our youth, something our world today needs more of as the state of today’s politicians can never seem to come together to agree on solving some of our toughest problems. Does taking away from our children really make sense?

These are questions we need to ask ourselves before going ahead and making decisions. We need to look at our own selves, not just dollar amounts on paper. We need to reflect back to our own childhoods and recall the good times where we rooted for the home team on a crisp fall night at the football field, or how we enjoyed a healthy run on the track after hours of sitting in classrooms. Athletics are what bring schools together. They help to incorporate teamwork as classmates plan accordingly to be the best, to beat out the opposition teams from other area schools. Teamwork. It’s what many in our world have lost a sense of today. It’s time to come together to resolve the problems that we face before they become any larger, but it’s certainly not the time to be taking away from our children. The future leaders of this country depend on us to help shape their future, and quite honestly, it’s time to start doing just that.