Storyline: I fear that commitment to teamwork and cooperation is disappearing. Those two things are so important in sports. They’re building blocks of culture and society, too.
My favorite class freshman year was 3rd Period Health. I remember how my teacher, Mr. Bradley Brown, and I used to have friendly arguments about sports. He’s a UNC and Cubbies fan. I’m a UK and St. Louis Cardinals’ fan.
We’d have heated arguments. And he’d always say the same thing: “Show me the stats!” I’d say that sports are a lot more than about stats. It’s also about the lessons learned along the way and the bonds you form with teammates.
Courtesy: morethan-stats.com
Here are two examples to make my case, the first dating back 30 years, and the second having occurred more recently.
During my dad’s high school basketball team was in a tough situation. With the departure of eight seniors my dad was the most experienced player on the team–even though he had scored only four points the year before. Many fans gave up on the team after it went 0-7 to start the season.
But my dad and his teammates stood by each other, just like brothers. What happened? They started winning, racking up 10 wins the rest of the way, finishing the season 10-15, and almost upsetting one the largest schools in the state.
It was an experience my dad and his teammates would never forget.
Here’s a recent example.
My high school basketball team doesn’t look like much. Our point guard does the tip-offs; our post players are both 5-10; and I–the tallest player–start at small forward. Before one game, players on the other team snickered and laughed. But we’d be the ones to get the last laugh: we won against a team that should have run us out of the gym.
Courtesy: pinterest.com
And it’s not just that we won just one game, either. So far this season we have a 13-5 record. That’s astonishing given what we have to work with.
What’s our recipe for success? We get along. It’s teamwork. It’s cooperation. There’s not a selfish player on our team, and we all average about the same (meager) stats.
What’s the moral of these stories?
We sometimes forget the true meaning of sports. Through propaganda (ala ESPN) we idolize teams with star players. But we often fail to recognize that teams need to play together which is, after all, what sports are all about.
And where I live it’s the only way. It’s the only way we can compete with large schools.
So, yeah, Mr. Brown, stats do tell part of the story. But they fail to show the whole story.
The reason I wrote this article is because I fear that commitment to teamwork and cooperation is disappearing. Those two things are so important in sports. They’re the building blocks of culture and society, too.
