Imagine that you and your high school team make it to the finals in a basketball game. Everyone in the stands is cheering for your team to beat the opponent and become champions. But, oh no! One of your teammates gets hit in the face with the ball by accident! Now, everyone on the team is getting angry with the person who passed the ball, the people in the stands are shouting and booing, and everything is just going wrong. In these types of situations, it’s best to ask yourself: Is it important for student-athletes to cooperate and work together as a team?
To start off, many student-athletes at school deal with similar complications when it comes to working with another peer. By this, I mean that some students have different beliefs about how working with one another has advantages and disadvantages. For instance, I interviewed Skyla and asked for her opinion on whether she thought working together is important and what she would do if a team member were to be down or hurt. Skyla replied, “I think that teamwork is very important because, for my sport, it is common that we work together to take a win due to the amounts of passing and working as one. So yes, I agree that partnership is important. To answer your second question, I would help a team member because that’s what teammates are for.” Skyla has shown that showing sportsmanship can actually be beneficial to building deeper relationships and showing true character.
On the other hand, some people think that having fellow players may be a “waste of time” or “just another person to carry,” but is this true? I asked a former wrestler
(Janea) if she preferred to work alone or together, and if cooperation in her sport was key to success. After some thought, she replied, “Well, for my sport, it’s more difficult to work as a team since you are mostly alone with your opponent on the mat. So, I do prefer to work alone mostly because I’m always alone on stage. But I do think cooperation is key to success because when I’m feeling down on myself, my teammates shout to me from the stands, and it helps encourage my game plan.” As Janea portrays, sometimes it’s up to what sport you play to get this mixed confirmation on the importance of teamwork. Janea does wrestling, which doesn’t really require lots of help from teammates, while Skyla plays a sport that relies on teammates all the time.
In conclusion, working together is one of the greatest superpowers anyone can build on. Whether you’re playing soccer or wrestling, teamwork can play a part, even when it can be challenging at times. With passion and selflessness, you can even build stronger bonds with fellow team members just by helping or speaking to them. Now, if we circle back to the basketball game, would you help the team by talking to them and calming everyone down, or would you sit back and watch as the drama all plays out?
