To me, being a team player is recognizing the full value and capabilities of each member of the team. I began to develop a mature understanding of this my Senior year of high school when I was
I was co-captain of the Varsity soccer team. From the outside, the Wilson Memorial High School girls’ soccer team looked powerful and sound. Externally, we appeared to be a cohesive group, a successful group, even a happy group. But on the inside, we were weak, broken, and exclusive. Though we were successful as players on the field, we failed as teammates and supporters of each other. Increased intensity, comparison, and jealousy stole our collectiveness and joy. Playing more out of fear of the disapproval of others than pure love of the game, we suffered silently. And no one …show more content…
And very few, including myself, saw the opportunity to change as we continued to play without joy.

As co-captain of the soccer team the following year, I decided that I wanted to change this culture instead of coping with it. Even though the previous year’s Seniors and team captains were gone, we still faced many of the same lingering fears and pressures that seemed to inevitably seep into the identity of the team. In order to address the problem, we had to adjust our views and hopes for our team, and more importantly, our views of each other. After talking with my coaches about wanting to make changes in our team environment, I took a direct role in trying to initiate meaningful conversations that would first address not only our hopes for the success of the team, but in turn, address our views of each other. In one of our early team meetings, we began by talking about our goals for the year. Though we at first mentioned goals regarding our team’s county and district tournament progress, there was no mention of our team relational progress. But I could still feel the lingering question in the air: how will we make this team more intentional, supportive, and a team? And in order to bring this