One Woman’s Crusade to Spread Positive Stories

Insightful Player™ Asks Parents to Take Time Out Sunday to Read A Positive Story to Kids; All Part of One Woman’s Crusade to Spread Positive Stories about Athletes to Youth

This Sunday is arguably the biggest sports day of the year in the United States. Over 100 million people will watch the big game in households across the country. As families gather and host parties, tune into the game, await the halftime show and keep a scorecard for the best and worst of the popular big game commercials, Insightful Player™ asks parents to take a few minutes out of the day to educate their children that these players should be appreciated not only for their athletic prowess but more importantly, for the good deeds they do in the community and the inspirational way many overcame obstacles in life to achieve success in the NFL.

The Insightful Player™ team members are individuals that believed in themselves and relentlessly pursued their most far-reaching dreams, which resulted in a career in the National Football League. The InsightfulPlayer.com website features the inspirational stories of 30 current and former NFL players, each of whom overcame great obstacles and hardships to become not just fine athletes, but through their values and their life experiences, became extraordinary individuals that serve as an inspiration to us all.

Insightful Player is encouraging everyone this weekend to take a few minutes to access the site and read at least one of these inspiring stories. Shouldn’t we be educating our youth on some of the positive, community-oriented and charitable things that players do on a regular basis?

That is a question that has been the driving force for Chrissy Carew, a personal and business coach based in Nashua, NH who has made it her life’s mission to accomplish this. Insightful Player is a client of iMedia Public Relations. In April 2010, she founded Insightful Player™ with a vision of providing an answer to a crucial worldwide calling for messages of hope that provoke positive action.

Carew believes that the human race is at a crossroads of transformation and obliteration. The world is depressed, especially our kids. We are in desperate need of role models. Young people today look up to professional athletes for their power, grace and ability on the field or the court. Sometimes sports figures are also heralded by young people for their high-flying lifestyles, material assets and high-profile friends. In some cases, such as the recent NFC Championship game, athletes themselves publicly bash fellow players and degrade them to the media, which is then picked up by our youth. In the case of this year’s Super Bowl, the starting quarterback for one of the teams had his own off-the-field incident to deal with in the past.

What athletes should not be admired for is social behavior that is unacceptable. Unfortunately the media has been inundated lately with stories of such transgressions.

Carew believes that from the time we are very young children, everyone who holds influence over our lives, for better or worse, contributes to the core of who we are – that unique spirit within each of us made up of our ideas, perceptions, motivation and sense of faith.

This is why she feels it is imperative for the sports industry, whether it is coaches, school administrators, scouts, agents, sports marketers, sponsors and most importantly, professional athletes, to recognize the impact they have on the impressionable youth in this country.

Not all of us have positive role models in our family. Many of the children today going into athletics come from broken homes. The impressions made during this time can have positive and negative effects on that child’s future. Our children require more positive reinforcement.

Too often, all kids hear about and have drilled into them are the negative things associated with their athletic heroes. We must all be cognizant of the message we’re delivering to youth. She believes the entire sports industry has to be held accountable. Just think of some of the ways recently our youth have learned about their favorite athletes:

o A quarterback exits a championship game with a severe knee injury and then has his character questioned by media and fellow players who post disparaging remarks on Twitter.
o When an athlete is arrested for DOI and kids see that his punishment is just to sit out a quarter of the team’s next game, what is that telling them about responsibility?
o A hero of the Super Bowl goes into a night club and is arrested for carrying a gun. Another is accused of abusing a young woman not his wife. What are we doing to educate young athletes early on in their careers about putting themselves in such situations?
o Major brands target the young demographic audience with edgy campaigns. Then we wonder why there is a disconnection regarding values.

By drawing out these very important inspirational stories, Carew’s goal is to inspire today’s youth to follow this example: not an example of expensive possessions and celebrity lifestyle, but an example of embodying your values and deepest moral beliefs in everything you do as you strive to reach your own successes.

Please encourage your family members, friends and colleagues to take a few minutes out this weekend to get inspired and read one of the Insightful Player stories. It will be a refreshing change from what is being written today about off-the-field exploits of athletes.

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