Blog Post 3
Playing sports all of my life was amazing – sports have and always will be my passion. The downside, though, is when you’re on a team that’s facing adversity on a daily basis. It’s not easy, it tests your limits of the team and you as an individual. Growing up in a small town, we didn’t have as much talent as some of the other suburbs, which was extremely difficult to deal with. We were just a small group of guys playing the sport we loved, which was baseball. Baseball was my go to when I was down or struggling with anything, but the fact that we weren’t as successful as many other local teams definitely affected me. It wasn’t fair; how could we control where we lived and who we got to play the game we loved with? Although I wanted to move at times to try to get on a better team, I was not able to and had to handle what I was given. I trained harder and harder every single day in efforts of making myself better, but my team especially. Throughout my four years of high-school, we struggled as a unit the first three years. We were below .500 all three seasons and didn’t make the playoffs once, which was pathetic. Going to watch all of the other local teams in the playoffs made me furious; I just wanted to be that guy to help his team win a regional title, a sectional title, or even a state title. Although those goals are not easy, they are possible. What I noticed about the structure of the team in the first three years was that we weren’t as connected or organized as the successful teams. We never did any team bonding, most teams would hangout every weekend and go out to eat or do regular teenage things. I constantly stayed in or just would go out with a different group other than the baseball team. I noticed that if we do not have team chemistry, then we have nothing. There’s no such thing as a team having success if they don’t have chemistry.
Another trait of our team that I noticed was that we were very unorganized. We had practice three or four times a week, instead of six days a week like all of the state-qualifying teams. Even when we did have practice, there would be no structure. We basically would just do batting practice and shag baseballs at the same time. Our coach thought that would be a solid practice for a group of kids that are not as talented as others around us. At times, I questioned whether he had faith in us or not. Derek Jeter, the famous ex-shortstop for the New York Yankees said it best, “There may be people who have more talent than you, but there’s no excuse for anyone to work harder than you do.” Once I discovered this and realized how effective this could be, I changed the culture for our team senior year. Heading into my final season of the sport I immensely loved, I craved success and making the playoffs. I established a sense of structure, culture, connectedness, and organization among the sixteen of us.
After knowing very little about them the first three years, I made sure we did something at least twice a week to create a sense of unity and togetherness. We weren’t going to be playing for the name on the back of our jersey anymore, we were playing for the name on the front. When the season hit, we were amped up and we all knew almost everything about each other. We wanted it more than any other team in the state. Finally, we learned from our mistakes the past few years and started practicing six days a week. Our practices were organized – we had time for offense, defense, and pitching. The season went on and we were the most successful team in 13 years. We finished 18 games over .500, with a final regular season record of 28-10. I’ve never had a feeling like this, it was indescribable. After watching everybody play in front of hundreds or even thousands of people during the playoffs, we were finally getting that opportunity. The day came, and the stands were filled. I was excited, nervous, and anxious. The game was close the whole time and we were tied in the last inning with the other team up to bat in the bottom of the seventh. The pitcher threw the ball, and the batter hit it. He hit it far. The game was over, our season was over, my career was over. I was heart-broken and distraught, but I was so proud. I was proud of what we built in the baseball program and I hoped the structure would remain this way.
This is actually blog post 4. The previous one was on opportunism, which is ironic since I believe you were the one who asked about it class, but then didn't write a post. I'm struggling to understand what happened there.
ReplyDeleteIt seems you put your heart into this activity and writing this post. My questions and comments that follow are meant only for clarification and then to ask what translates to what our class is studying and what does not.
First, the Oakland A's of the early 1970s were the best MLB team of their time - Reggie Jackson, Sal Bando, Joe Rudi... Yet they had a reputation for brawling in the clubhouse. You wrote about the necessity of team chemistry. This may be a counterexample to that. But there is no doubt that they had a lot of talent. In my economics mind, where tradeoffs are possible, talent and team chemistry are both desirable, but to a certain extent they can be substitutes. Given that, I wonder if talent was at least a partial explanation for your team's success. You might consider this by asking who got a lot of playing time. Was it mainly juniors and seniors or were there stars on the team who were freshmen or sophomores? Also, even if it were upperclassmen, sometimes a person is a late bloomer. Did any of your teammates become much better as ballplayers that year?
Also, it was unclear what role your coach played during that senior year. Did you get a new coach? Or did you convince the old coach to have more practices and better activities at a practice? I wonder how that worked.
The next angle I'd like you to consider is whether in any way you continues with that experience in college? I'm unclear on what IM sports are available to students. I'd guess it would be softball, not hardball. If softball were quite competitive, would it be a good alternative for you or not? And did the type of personal commitment you showed in high school manifest in any other way in college, perhaps in some way entirely unrelated to sports?
Then the last thing I'd say is that it is unclear to me whether you did the B&D chapter 5 reading that the prompt asked you to do. If you were to write a paragraph about how your story tied into what our class is studying, would you know what to write? Are there lessons here for groups that aim for teamwork outside of a sports setting?
I do agree that there may be a tradeoff between talent and team chemistry. It is hard to have more than a few guys in the locker room that all believe they are the dominant and most game-changing player. While I believe that we undoubtedly get more talented, it was not a situation like that of the Oakland A's where there was turmoil in the locker room. So for my team individually, I think that we were able to increase our talent and team chemistry without experiencing the tradeoff that sometimes can be a disadvantage.
DeleteWe did have the same coach, but the individual leaders on the team, mostly seniors, stepped up harder and did their part. We would hang out as a team after practice and on the weekends. There was more of a sense of family and accountability that year, and I don't think it had anything to do with the coach.
Although I do continue to play softball in college, I must say that my passion for any IM team will probably not be at the level that it was in high school. I felt pride in my high school team as I believe many high school students do. I also do not think that I was able to find that same commitment in other ways in college. It is just hard to replicate that kind of passion and camaraderie after you leave the sport you love.
I will try to do a better time relating my experiences to the texts for next assignment. I could have tied in ideas and lessons better from the book.