Youth Sports: The Building Block To A Career
Why do we want our kids to play sports?
Youth Sports: The Building Block To A Career I love sports for many reasons. Youth sports teach our kids character, hard work, resiliency, and how to be good teammates. This is just the short list of what could go on for {literally} pages. When kids are in a positive sports situation, the benefits are endless. But what we don’t typically think about is how youth sports can alter our kid’s entire future.
There are many potential paths
Sports open our kids’ eyes and minds to ideas, possibilities, and different career paths. The scope goes way beyond traditional roles like coach, administrator, or physical therapist. My middle daughter wants to be a sports psychologist, and my youngest is thinking of majoring in sports management one day. And for creative types, there are many potential paths: sports broadcasting, sports journalism, and sports marketing, just to name a few.
Pay it forward
I used sports as a jumping-off point to a sports-related career in journalism and television production. It was hard to break in, as many people dream of working in sports. So, it’s always been important to me to elevate and support hard-working young people interested in the business.
Rising Superstars
I’m lucky to work with two rising superstars, and I wanted to share their stories and their work: Christian Oregel and Adam Elhardouzi.
Christian Oregel is a senior at Crespi High School near Los Angeles. He played baseball and ran track and field. However, almost two years ago, his life changed when he borrowed his mom’s camera to take photos of his brother playing football. He instantly fell in love and never looked back. You can find many of Christian’s photos on Ilovetowatchyouplay posts; he captures a mood and emotion that most sports photos don’t.
My Journey Founding ILoveToWatchYouPlay
Christian loves feeling the game’s adrenaline and re-telling it as a visual storyteller. He hopes to shoot for a professional sports team one day. In the meantime, he continues to go to school and is on track to graduate this spring while continuing to work with his photography clientele.
I happened upon a video by Adam Elhardouzi last year and knew right then that this kid was special. I followed the video’s path back to his social media, and his talent blew me away! His visual storytelling rivals some of the best in the business—I’m not kidding. And Adam is a freshman in college!
Adam began the year playing D1 Rugby at Long Beach State. Yet, his passion and talent for videography and editing were apparent to everyone—as he was already interning part-time for Long Beach sports teams like women’s soccer, basketball, and women’s volleyball. Once the media department also recognized Adam’s talent, they promptly offered him the lead video role for men’s volleyball – one of the country’s top volleyball programs. He had to decide, so Adam hung up his Rugby boots and invested in his passion and his future in videography. From where I am looking, it was a wise choice. This kid’s talent is off the charts.
Where you can find them
Check out their work at:
Christian Oregel @ceocaptured and contact at ceoregel@gmail.com
Adam Elhardouzi: @shotByAdamE and contact at elhardouziadam@gmail.com