Well, good news for hockey star and Olympian Meghan Agosta—she’s pretty likely to pick up a good job, thanks to skills learned on the ice. Of course, you don’t have to be an Olympian to reap the same benefits—just play sports in high school.
According to a study published in the Journal of Leadership and Organizational Studies, people who participate in youth sports learn a bunch of “occupationally advantageous” traits, which carry over into the rest of their life. Specifically, they are more likely to be self-confident, have more self-respect, and demonstrate more leadership than people who engaged in other extracurricular activities.
According to one of the study’s authors, Kevin Kniffin, “In our study of late-career workers, those who earned a varsity letter more than 50 years ago do demonstrate these characteristics more than others – plus, they donate time and money more frequently than others and possessed great prosocial behavior in their 70s, 80s, and 90s.”
One caveat we’d like to point out: since these people studied played more than fifty years ago, it’s unlikely that they were given participation trophies. Something to think about.
