When you join a team, you also join a family. Blood, or not you are family. These are people you spend the majority of your time with, doing what you love most. But some people don’t see it like that.
In high school, there are always going to be people that don’t like you, and that’s just how it is. It doesn’t matter if you act a certain way, look a certain way, or do certain things, no matter what there’s going to be people that don’t like you. These people must not know you for you, or seem to care about what you are interested in. That’s why it is so important to have a relationship with people who enjoy doing the same things as you.
When you are in a sport, you and those other people share the same values. You love doing the same things and love doing what makes you happy, and that’s what makes you guys close. Not just in sports, but in clubs or even classes there are people that you have to work together with and that’s what creates these groups.
The bad thing about this is not everyone is going to want to be on a team with you. They may see you as competition, and try to knock you down harder than anyone else. That’s not what being on a team is about. If you are the best on the team, and someone new comes in and is better than you, you shouldn’t hate them. You should look up to them and ask them questions on how to better yourself to get to where they are. They are not your competition, they are your motivation.
When I was a freshman and I joined track, the two people who had the school records in the events that I was in, had already graduated. I had no idea who these people were or what they looked like, but I knew that I wanted to be like them with my name on the school record board. I wish at that moment when I was just a freshman, that I could talk to them and ask how they did it, but they weren’t there. I had to do this myself. With that being said, I never had anything against these two girls, and I never spoke down on their name because they were better than me at something we all enjoyed doing.
That’s what it’s like to be a team. Not knowing someone and wanting to be like them. Not knowing someone and wanting to ask them how to get better. It shouldn’t be someone talking down on you, or you talking down on someone else. It should be showing love and kindness to the people around you, especially if they like doing the same things as you.
