Athletes today take a lot of criticism for being selfish and for being people that contribute nothing to society. This is not just at the professional level, this is all kinds of athletes. In reality, athletes are a different class of a person, especially those involved in team sports and I am here to tell you why.

I never really noticed how important team sports are to a person and how it affects the way you do things in your life and how it can affect others in positive ways. This first hit me while working at my current job at a summer camp. During pre-camp, when we had to do a lot of manual labor, only a few people stood out above the others, and I am not necessarily saying me individually, rather the groups I worked in and saw. The big thing with these groups was that over 75% of the people in them were once part of, or were currently part of a team in the world of sports. Then people started saying to me that they preferred to work with people who had been on a team. They said athletes have a great work ethic compared to those who are non-athletes (no disrespect intended) but those who are athletes within a team like a baseball player or soccer player worked extremely harder, more efficiently and smarter compared to those mentioned. The more I thought about this the more I believed it. I could see it happening around me and I thought about the people I had worked with and what they did athletically and how we all work on the same kind of mentality.

Now looking in the real world like working in an office you might not expect someone who was on the high school lacrosse team to be amazing at the job for their work rate. But it is the stuff built around being on a team that makes a difference. Those people who were on teams had it drilled into their heads. They had to work together and as a unit with others no matter what. When it comes to work we have to get on with it and act professional even if we do not want too. We can put faces on to benefit ourselves and others in order for our group to succeed. This quote brings so much to my head about everything and how those who have been in this position can relate to it, "You are on a team. It's a family, regardless of if you like all of them or none of them. You can't choose your family, just like you can't choose your team. Even through all the drama, your team will always be there for you and you should be there for them. You compete as one, not individuals. Everyone should try harder every practice. Win or lose as a team. Rise or fall as a team."

Being a team can change you as a person drastically and can separate you a lot from others by the way you think about things and go about actions. You see situations and people different and you have to have the opposite of a selfish attitude because if you break one foundation of that team you fail, and that's when you let everyone down, so when working in groups, us team sport athletes are always going to be putting in more than 110% to benefit others. And when someone in the group is down, you can look at us because you know we have been in this place before and we will definitely help anyone get out of it and look up again.