When I was growing up I loved to play soccer. There was no doubt that soccer was my favorite sport. I was twelve years old the first time I played on my first team. Before that I played for fun outside with friends. I noticed a big change between playing with your own rules and playing within the rules of a team. When I started to play soccer on my own, I concentrated on my skills and how to improve myself. But when I started to play in a team it was less about me and more about us. My team name was The Scorpions, and my coach's number one objective was team building. I remember my first practice like it was yesterday. Our coach Danny gathered us up and put us in teams of three. Then he said, "Now for today's practice, I want everyone to do one thing and one thing only, pass!" I was a little confused, I remember saying, "I don't want to learn how to pass, I want to learn how to score!" He smiled and replied, "I am teaching you how to score, by working as a team and learning how to pass, you will be able to score all the goals you want." I listened during practice, but not so much during the games. I kept trying to score goals on my own. I thought I was better then everyone else and that I could do it all on my own. Finally at one point, Danny took me aside and told me this. "I can see that your determined, I can see that you have a lot of skill, but the only way our team can become successful is if you join us. Not only will you improve yourself but your teammates as well. If you focus on the team, success will follow you." I took his advice and decided to trust my teammates more. During our very next game I remember running with the ball, and two defenders were running towards me. I thought to myself do I need help? Can I trust my teammates? I knew what I had to do. I passed the ball to one of my teammates upfront and within a few seconds my entire team started cheering. My teammate scored because I passed him the ball. It's amazing how one moment changed the way I thought about teams forever. Being team oriented helped me develop into a leader, and as a leader I was able to help others around me become better players. We gained a common ground, we had a common goal. We were loyal to each other and respected each other. We were a team, we were The Scorpions.
If you have any life experiences where you learned the meaning of teamwork through sports, please comment below
-Gianni
Playing hockey back in the day i learned how to work in a team environment, and learned that team work is very important.
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