For the better part of my life, I have been a member of a team; sports or various club activities. Personally, I took this responsibility seriously. This meant that I was working with other people towards a common goal, along with bettering myself for them.
Within the realm of being a team player, you have to put others before yourself; you have to put aside differences to understand each other and forgive each other for what may be separating you from reaching the goals you collectively, and individually, work towards. The uniforms represent that we are a team, but as individual members we collectively become a whole.
To understand being a member of a team, you have to understand respect. It isn’t simply, do onto others what you would want done onto you. It means, regardless of how you personally feel, you take what your team members are saying seriously and you step into their shoes to see where they are coming from, and you simply, listen to each other.
Being a member of a team was especially important to me when I came to college. Instantly my cross county and track and field team became my family; people I could turn to in time of need for advice, people I could depend on to carry me through hard times, and people that encouraged me to push myself to limits I never thought I could reach.
With their help, I reached, and passed, those limits, I proved myself wrong and continue to prosper, but it happens because of continual hard work and team dedication. I have found a balance between priorities with their help, and I have found that working together is necessary for progress. Finally, and maybe most importantly, I have learned that when I am having a bad day, or am in a pickle, its not only the physical running at practice that helps me release stress, it’s the fact that my team will unconditionally listen to me and help me work through my problems.
While being a member of a team, you have to care. You have to put in the extra effort to care about yourself so you stay healthy and focused, and you have to care about each member on your team, so that you can help him or her stay healthy and focused as well. You may not always like them, but you whether you admit it or not, you care about them.
It’s no doubt that college athletics gets tiring and hard, and of course the question why am I participating in such a rigorous extracurricular activity comes to mind, but when I think about that question, I answer; for my team. I am at practice and every meet for the other eight girls on my cross-country team, and the other 29 girls on my track and field team. Aside from the amazing reward of accomplishment, it means everything to me when my teammates are proud of me and appreciate all that I do. They make what seems so hard, so much fun, that it’s almost easy (but don’t tell my coach I said that). My teammates make me want more than I was striving for before, and I owe them part of the credit for my accomplishments, because I couldn’t have done it without them.
Working and being a participating member of a team has been one of the most important accomplishments of my life, aside from being one of the most difficult. For the next two years I will continue to wake up at 5:30 a.m. for 6 a.m. practice, and then go through a long day of classes just to return to practice at 3 p.m. I will continue to dedicate my weekends to meets and competition, and on my days off, I will continue to make time for my team, because I am not only running to better myself, but I am running for my team, and there is are no excuses for being selfish.
This year, two of my other teammates and I on the cross country team took on the role of upperclassmen, since there are no seniors on the team. With the lead of our captain, the three of us strive every day to help make the freshman class feel at home, feel they come to us for anything and everything, encourage them to push themselves to reach their full potential, and believe that whatever they want, they can achieve. It doesn’t matter how fast you run, at the end of the day it comes down to how much heart you have.
