Youth is synonymous with energy—mental and physical. Organized and informal sports provide teens with an opportunity to expend some of that energy and, more importantly, to learn the value of fair play, to achieve goals, and to just have fun. In 2003, 58 percent of boys and 51 percent of girls in high school played on a sports team. The most popular sports for boys are American football, basketball, track and field, baseball, and soccer (international football). For girls, the most popular are basketball, track and field, volleyball, softball, and soccer. As a result of a U.S. law that encourages women to take part in athletics, girls' participation in high school athletics has increased by 800 percent over the past 30 years! Other organized high school sports often include gymnastics, wrestling, swimming, tennis, and golf. Away from school, teenagers participate year-round in community-sponsored sports leagues. In addition, particularly in the summer, they engage in informal "pick up" games of one sport or another in the streets and parks of their neighborhoods.

After school I play two kinds of sports —volleyball in the fall and basketball in the winter. Volleyball is my favorite sport. I play volleyball after school. When practice starts, the team runs a couple of warm-up laps, and then we start a fun-filled practice of many drills. Some of those drills are digging, setting, spiking, diving, and much more. When we have a game, we wear some kind of shirt that represents the volleyball team and that tells kids at our school that we have a game that night.

During the winter, I play basketball. Like volleyball, we start practice right after school and we run warm-up laps before a long hard practice. We first start drills that involve shooting to make our shots better. Then we do drills like ball handling, shooting drills, press drills, and we work on our defense and offense. In the spring, I don't play any sports so I go to physical conditioning so I can stay in shape for volleyball and basketball.

Paige Caldwell, 15, grade 9, McCutcheon High School, Lafayette, Indiana [http://www.wvec.k12.in.us/McCutcheon]

I started running track in the seventh grade because I was good at running in football. I just never got tired. Sports have played a huge role in teaching me discipline, actually waking up at 5:45 in the morning to go train and to go to practice seven days a week.

My father, who died last year, has really served as my motivation whenever I wanted to give up, whether in school or in running. He fought cancer for nine years, went through two 14-hour surgeries, chemo[therapy], and radiation. My parents came from Nicaragua, but I was born and raised in Miami in a neighborhood that is 90 percent Hispanic.

Eduardo (Eddie) Arguello, 18, grade 12, Belen Jesuit Preparatory School, Miami, Florida [http://www.belenjesuit.org]

I'd estimate that I spend two to three hours per day—year round—practicing American football and/or basketball, including weight lifting. In fact, the first few weeks of American football practice, in the late summer and early fall, I spend five hours or more per day. Why? Well, the first reason I put so much into it is I love sports. It just comes natural to me that I want to play.

And I realize it's pretty much a once-in-a-lifetime thing. Twenty years from now, you're not going to able to play American football and basketball, and when I get to that point, I don't want to have any regrets that I missed out on the chance to play.

My sport in college is probably going to be basketball, but I've made up my mind that I want to play at the highest level of college competition I can. So if I get a better opportunity of a scholarship for playing football than basketball, I'd play football. But most likely, it will be basketball.

When you've got a team doing well, everybody [at school] is so much more involved in everything. You have more kids wanting to come out for sports, you have more people coming to the games. It unites the community, and all that motivates us who are playing. People may not get quite as excited if you're not winning, but even then, it's still fun.

The other thing I'm sure of is that being in sports makes me a better student. If you don't have good enough grades, you don't get to play. I know during a sports season, I've got less time for studying, but what winds up happening is that I work harder on my studies. I'm more focused on just what I have to do, and when I have to get everything done. I know I've got to have more drive in my studies than I might at other times of the year. I almost always get better grades then. So sports really help me academically.

David Foster, 17, grade 11, Sweet Grass County High School, Big Timber, Montana [http://www.sweetgrasscounty.com/sghs]

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