Juniata Mennonite School athletics offers boys' and girls' soccer and basketball at the elementary, junior high, and high school levels, and track for high school and junior high.  For schedules and results of each sport, click on the links below.

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    Sports take a lot of time, a good deal of sacrifice, and a fair amount of money (although we find ways to work against that last one).  Furthermore, they can involve injury, hurt feelings, flaring tempers, and can be overblown beyond all reason in our competition-mad society.
    So, why do them?  It would certainly be easier not to.  But we do.  Fall soccer, winter basketball, and spring track and field are currently part of the JMS landscape.  While we have no plans to increase those offerings, we are committed to maintaining them, and just the maintenance of that is a price.  So again: why do them?
    I've posed the "Why do we do it?" question to myself a time or fourteen when the cost seemed to exceed the benefits.  But those moments always pass, and I find myself increasingly convinced of the value of sports properly done.  The following are a few of those values that seem to stand out:

        1) Sports can develop character.
                Perseverance, hard work, patience, self-discipline, and consistency are traits that are worth developing.  Sports encourage the development of these, and other, character traits, and I find that process very much worth the time.  "This is why we do sports," I said to our girls' soccer team after they exhibited every character trait in the book in scraping their way to a 0-0 overtime tie against a stronger, more skilled team, "because you all grew tonight."  True growth is not easy, sports can sometimes foster growth, and I find that process worth it.

        2) Sports can reveal character.
                If you have a problem with anger, it will likely come out on the athletic field.  If you have a problem with quitting when the going gets tough, it will likely come out on the athletic field.  The heat of competition can sometimes serve as a refining fire where troublesome issues can be exposed and dealt with.  True, that process can seem a little messy at times, but I have come to respect the lasting value it can bring.

        3) Sports can bring life's difficult issues into focus.
                This point is really related to the last two.  It is one thing to teach children a concept such as "love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you," in the classroom, but loving the enemy who just ran over you on the soccer field without showing any remorse, takes Biblical application into an entirely different dimension.

        4) Sports can provide opportunities for success and motivation.
                It is a simple truism that some students will struggle more in the classroom than others.  Sports can provide another forum for students to succeed -- some of whom will find academic accolades hard to come by.  Sports can also provide motivation to keep up with schoolwork in order to stay eligible for sports.  Yes, in a perfect world students would do their work without pressure or the threat of consequence.  It's not a perfect world, and the release and motivation of sports can help us a little further forward.

That answers some of the "why" regarding sports at JMS.