This I Believe

Team.  When I was five years old, the word team became apart of my vocabulary.  The word, “team” means a group of players forming one side in a competitive game or sport. I have been apart of many sports teams for soccer and volleyball.  However, teams are everywhere not just in sports.  I have been apart of academic teams for class projects.  And then in the future, I will be apart of a team for work.  After my many years of being apart of a team, I believe, “We win as a team and lose as a team,” “We succeed as a team and fail as a team,” and “We achieve our goals as a team and fall short of our goals as a team.”  Our team is our second family, the people we trust no matter what.  During times when things are tough and not going our way, we need to stay and work together and do not start blaming one another.

Volleyball.  Is a team sport and cannot be done by one person.  You need to trust that your teammate will do their job whether it is to pass the ball up, or block the ball, or serve the ball in, or set the perfect set, or spike the ball down for a kill.  However, it doesn’t always work that way.  In volleyball, it is never guaranteed you will win every set and match or always do your job right.  It is a game of risks, skills, and strategy.

My coach always preaches, “When we start to go down, we as a team need to stay together and play as a team not as individuals.”  In one Saturday volleyball tournament at McKinley High School gymnasium our team was tested on whether we could stay as a team or fall apart.  It was the first set against Oahu Volleyball Club also known as OVC.  We were losing 4 to 10.  Nothing was going our way.  We couldn’t get a pass, set, or hit going our way.  I was sweating and totally exhausted from playing my butt off just for us to losing.  I tracked the serve coming towards us I moved my feet to where I thought the ball was going to land and then PACK.  I shanked the ball to the left.  I was frustrated and I couldn’t comprehend why I shanked the ball.  Then my setter started yelling at me, “Lets go Mikayla, I need a pass, come on.”  After that play, I was angry and when I finally got a pass up the hitter couldn’t finish it.  I started to yell and blame others for losing out of frustration.  We ended up losing the set 25 to 8 and then the second set 25 to 12.  We couldn’t win a game after that we just went downhill. 

Our coach said to us after the game and tournament, “You guys didn’t play as a team, you all played as individuals and got frustrated with one another.  Volleyball is a team sport you can’t play it without your team.”  He then let us to go home.  As I was riding in the backseat of the car, I thought about what he had said to us.  I realized that, “My volleyball team was too mad that we were losing and blaming each other so much that, we fell apart as a team instead of sticking together, which is what a team should do.  There is no I in team.”  Now that I have learned as well as witnessed that as a team we are family and we need to stick together even though things are not going our way. 

Now, I feel that I have to apply what I learned about teams in sports I need to school group projects.  Academics and school is very important to me so when it comes to group projects I tend to take over and do most of the work, making life that much harder for me.  I need to trust that my team will do their part and when times are tough I need to work together with my team to get through it instead of blaming them then doing the whole project myself, which is the main cause of my stress.  Now I know I need to work with my team and not blame my teammates because my grade is on the line.  This.  I.  Believe.