Success Stories
Competing with Character
Teaching children how to deal with winning is almost as important as teaching them how to deal with losing. It’s also important for them to learn how to deal with injury, performance pressure and balancing academics and athletics. At Boys Town, we teach all of this and more under a single defining phrase: Competing with Character. Beyond the playing fields, this fundamental concept has become ever-present throughout Boys Town.
Dr. Bob Reznicek: Competing with character is one of the key elements of our athletic program and it also goes into other activities but it was really developed by Coach Kevin Kush almost 20 years ago here on our campus. And it teaches kids how to be good sports, how to handle adversity, how to handle success and that is a common thread through all of our athletic programs.
Kevin Kush: Competing with character really marries with the rest of our Boys Town skills. So, we're taking our social skills that we teach every day in the classroom and in the home and we're also extending them to the playing field so not only is important for our kids to learn the skills of the sport but they're also learning life skills through that sport.
Chikh Fall: Boys Town athletic and competing with character had helped me become the man that I am today and to allow me to be a good husband and good parent and a good role model for these kids today.
Kevin Kush: There's a lot of highs in sport and I wouldn't trade my experiences I had growing up in sports for anything but there's a lot of lows too. There's injury, there's defeat, we want to teach our kids 'how do I handle those?'
