October 1st, 2014 | Uncategorized
What is the true meaning of a team? Are there specific rules and relegations? Is there a common goal to strive for across all teams? Can you call a group a team? What makes them a team? Was my Bridgewater College basketball team really a team? If so, why? I ask myself this and I stare off wondering the answer. The word team is vastly complex. Never simple and never meaning one thing.
I have begun to find myself on multiple ‘teams’ while here in Ireland, between Sport Changes Life, basketball clubs (coaching and playing), class projects, and Victory Scholars. In all places the meaning of team carries weight in a different way.
With Sport Changes Life and Ehoops programs, we come together with multiple things on our agenda. We aim towards the youth that usually are unemployed by helping them with resumes, mentors, relationship building, and just having some good craicc (fun). When working with basketball teams, we are striving to become better players, teammates, and become one as a unit. We ultimately have a range of goals from winning championships to maybe finishing in a specific place in the tournament. I have started group projects in my Master’s courses and we are meeting to decide on the best way to develop a business by picking an item to sell and figuring out how to create it, market it, and generate a profit. Then as Victory Scholars, we are a group that all come from the same country and have been placed into a new surrounding and culture. So it is good for us to lean on one another at times for support through the process.
In those 4 different realms, these teams all have different goals. The joining factor: working together to reach a certain milestone. They use one another for encouragement, motivation, constructive criticism, laughs, fun, exercise, and support. Nobody can say what exactly makes a team great because it has to be created within your group dynamics and your core leaders.
It’s the letters that spell the word “team”. However, it’s the small details inside a group that create the meaning of the word.
I challenge you to think outside of the box. Something so small and simple like the word – team – can be so complex and have a vast meaning. Something as simple as a smile can change a person’s day. Just being part of a team can change someone’s life. Something so small and so minor can be so great and so powerful.
