By Bill Nestor, Sports Editor
One of my favorite aspects of sports deals with the relationship factor that is so crucial in a team’s success. Some athletes focus more on the individual accomplishments rather than the team, which is hard for one to understand. The goal from a young age was for whatever team that I played on was to win the game. If you happened to score 20 points or the game winning basket, that was great as long as at the end of the day, your squad was on top.
I always found that the all for one and one for all mentality was the best. In the old days, and for me, I am talking about the 70s and 80s, your teammates were like your family.
There are many times during the course of a lengthy season when an athlete spends more time with their teammates and coaches than they do with their own family. That amount of time increases with the level of play. From high school to college to the professional level, it goes from practice to study halls to workout sessions and even extra curricular activities outside of the team setting.
The bonding that goes on, even at a young age, leads to friendships that can last a lifetime.
I’m not saying that friendships formed outside of sports won’t last, but I am saying that they are not battle-tested like the ones formed by teammates. Take, for instance, a high school basketball team that plays around 25 games in a season. Some of those games will be potentially easy wins, some could be massive setbacks, and maybe an overtime lock-up or two and you really have a roller coaster of emotions. That is a great deal to endure, but a team goes through it all together.
As a matter of fact, you will hear several athletes referring to a big game as “going to war” or they will say they would “go to war with these teammates any day.”
As you all know, this past weekend the United States bombed Iran. President Donald Trump said that Iran was close to obtaining nuclear capabilities. It goes without saying that this was huge move on the President’s part. My personal opinions are not important, but my message is extremely relevant to our country’s attitude.
It does not matter if you think this move was the correct one or not and it doesn’t matter if you are a republican or a Democrat. We are all on the same team as citizens of the United States. With all that has happened in our country from violent demonstrations to the flooding here in the Mountain State, and now the bombing of Iran, now, more than ever, we need to remember that we are teammates.
That means you need to lift up people instead of putting them down. Help someone if you can, because you might be the next person that needs help. Together, we can win this “game” if we quit focusing on ourselves and start concentrating on our country.
That will do it for now! Until next week . . . take care and God Bless!!!
