What Team Means to You
By: Victoria Cortez – Sports Editor
According to Dictionary.com, “Team is a number of persons forming one of the sides in a game or contest: a football team.” However, to Hesston College students team means much more than that. We are now at a time where fall sports have ended, winter sports have begun and spring sports have been preparing for their time on the field and court. Although each sport is different, every student feels the same toward their team.
“Team is commitment into a group effort.” Freshman baseball player Jesse Norrid said.
Freshman soccer player Courtney Wengerd says, “I think a team is a group of people who can work together, who utilizes each individual’s strengths and works on each individuals weaknesses, to be successful in the game they play. Team bonding is important because if the individuals on a team don’t get along or aren’t comfortable with each other, then they are less likely to get along and understand each other on the field. Therefore they won’t be a successful team.”
Sophomore Cross Country runner Jason Oyer says,”Team to me means: a group of people (not necessarily athletes) that come together to accomplish a goal or task. When team bonding happens, team chemistry grows. The team cares about each other more and are willing to go the extra mile for each other. In Cross Country we literally go the extra mile!”
Sophomore soccer player Nathan Peters says, “To me team is a strong relationship not only during the sport, but outside of the sport as well. Trust is something that is essential in a team. With no trust, there’s no team. Team is a group that nurtures, supports, and encourages. A group that has your back on the sports stage and off.”
Peters also gave his opinion on team bonding and says, “Team bonding is crucial in developing that trust level that I feel is so important for a team to have. At the beginning of our seasons we went to prairie view and did a ropes course…we hardly knew each other but we had to work together to accomplish the tasks before us. From that moment our team has been a “band of brothers” so to speak. It strengthened our team. If it hadn’t been for bonding early on in the season, I feel like our chemistry would not have been as great as it turned out to be. Bonding is important.”
According to Freshman basketball player Jordan Tanner “Team is many parts and pieces, or people working together to achieve a common goal.”
A few softball players also give their opinion on what team means to them. Freshman Ellise McGowan uses the simple words of, “A second family.” Tihani Palomares, another freshman says “It means that a group of people come together and decide to put aside their differences in order to work towards the same goal. A group of individuals become one single functioning unit and they stick together throughout the good times and the bad. Cheyenne Cherubini, another freshman says, “Team is being a part of something greater than yourself. But being able to express yourself through others, and having common goal”
Freshman baseball players Josh Hibbard and Rene Rivera, come up with what team means together. They say team is “A group of people that go through ups and downs to reach a goal.”
To freshman Volleyball player, Hayley Johnson “team to me… my volleyball girls are my family now”
Finally, to Sophomore, Bel Canto singer Morgan Martin says, “The positive experiences I’ve had on teams such as Tennis, and Bel Canto, are full of accountability, encouraging, supporting, compromising, and making sacrifices among a group of people reaching toward a similar goal. People on a team work together and bond in a special way!”
Although there are many different interoperations of what team means to people, the biggest concept is that it’s a group of people
that work together to achieve a goal.
