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At the end of the day, our children go to school to prepare for the life they have ahead. They learn math, science, English, social studies, world history — and the list goes on and on — but at the end of the day they truly learn a lot more.

They learn social skills. They make friends, deal with their own personal “drama” and how to be resilient when unexpected things come up in life. You can’t be successful in life without these skills — ones that aren’t necessarily taught out of chapter books.

Sports provide many of those same lessons. They teach winning together, losing together and the ups and downs of life. They teach never giving up, overcoming obstacles and failure, and never giving up until the clock hits zero.

That’s why we were so glad to see our middle schools add sports like baseball and soccer. Long Cane Middle School was featured in the paper as playing their first games on Tuesday night.

We think these sports provide an enormous opportunity for our students to learn outside of the classroom and to grow as a person. Many people look at the scoreboard and think athletics are all about winning and losing, but truthfully, it’s all about what you learn on the field.

It’ll be great if Long Cane goes on to have a tremendous season in either sport, but we’re just glad students have this opportunity.