Learning Life Lessons
The annual doubleelimination flag football tournament featuring teams from three Oklahoma juvenile centers helps build self-esteem in troubled youth.
Steve Goodnight only wants to plant a seed each day he steps inside the walls of the juvenile center.
He sees kids ranging from 13 to 18 years old trying to find their way. Most are looking for some guidance. He’s there to make a difference, no matter how small.
“A lot of these kids we get, their self-esteem is so low because they’ve been involved in mostly nothing but negative behaviors and activities,” Goodnight said. “They haven’t done a whole lot to feel positive about themselves.”
As the Central Oklahoma Juvenile Center’s director of recreation, Goodnight hopes athletics will aid teenagers who need life lessons and values.
The center offers softball, indoor soccer and basketball. But Wednesday’s sixth annual flagfootball tournament was special. It’s the prize for those working to improve.
“I’m not going to kid anybody and say every kid that comes through and plays ball for us has a life-changing experience,” Goodnight said. “But to different degrees we believe they benefit from it, but some of them maybe significantly so later.”
The double-elimination on an 80-yard field event featured teams from three different juvenile centers, including Southwest Oklahoma Juvenile Center in Manitou and Cedar Canyon Adventure Program from Weatherford.
For COJC, the 12-man football team was comprised of players who have met the eligibility requirements. Goodnight said generally around 30 kids come to the first football tryout. Through about five workouts the team is dwindled down to the 12.
Goodnight began the football team six years ago looking to continue adding options for kids to improve.
“Some of them will modify their behavior just in an effort to maintain eligibility just so they can run on these ball teams,” Goodnight said. “If we can get them to modify their behavior for any reason we view it as a good thing.”
Goodnight, 59, played college baseball at Oklahoma Christian after growing up in Asher, a small community obsessed with baseball. He still recalls the lessons he learned from his coaches.
Hard work. Respect. Discipline.
Goodnight had those in mind when he joined the center’s recreation department 21 years ago. He helped start the center’s annual March Madness basketball tournament. From there, more sports were added to where there’s never a part of the year without an option.
“It’s just our way of dangling carrots in front of these kids,” Goodnight said.
Now in more of an administrative role, Goodnight has five employees who primarily run the athletic teams. Wednesday, Goodnight watched as others coached the football team.
He still had every reason to be proud and hopeful for a better future.
“The nature of our work and the kids and the time period that we have them, we’re as much about planting positive seeds in their mind as anything,” Goodnight said. “Much of which we never know at what point later or if it all these seeds take root.
“We believe they do.”