With soccer's World Cup being played in South Korea and Japan, the world is literally abuzz with sport. But with exorbitant professional salaries, petulant sports stars unable (or unwilling) to deal with being role models, and even parents of young athletes coming to blows, are sports really a "goodthing"? One youth sports coach says his game is great for kids and community, and coaching is good for anybody.

Fellow GoodLetter readers,

College graduation can be tense time. All of a sudden, we former students are supposed to know exactly what we want to do with our professional lives at a time when most of our life experiences have been in the classroom. It causes too many college graduates to rush into the working world without having much to base our career decisions on. And with no prior working experience, we often find the positions that are available to us have more to do with getting coffee and compiling data than learning news skills and taking on responsibility, a scenario that, no doubt, holds little appeal for most imaginative and creative twentysomethings. When I was graduating from the University of Arizona a year ago, I felt all of this sort of tension. The solution I came up with -- a solution I would propose to other college graduates with the luxury of some flexibility -- was to volunteer for a year. I found my adventure in a coaching job, helping develop the sport of lacrosse in England.

Lacrosse is a graceful and fast-moving team sport that was created by Native Americans. The popularity of lacrosse is on the rise in the US, Australia, and other parts of the world. By taking a drive around my hometown of Fayetteville in central New York (a veritable hotbed for lacrosse), one might be stunned to see front yards with lacrosse goals instead of basketball hoops or soccer balls, and children around town twirling lacrosse sticks instead of sporting baseball gloves. Still, lacrosse as a whole is comprised of a small community of people compared to more mainstream sports. It really offers kids who learn the sport a greater opportunity to excel and benefit from the experience of competition. That's why when I was given the chance through the English Lacrosse Association to help increase awareness of lacrosse in that country and to bring teamwork and personal growth to others through lacrosse, I jumped at the prospect.