When I was in seventh grade, my mom told me that I should start playing a team sport so I wouldn’t be selfish.
All the sports that I played at that point were all-about-me, like diving and gymnastics, focused mainly on individual achievement. Though I had played team sports in the past, I didn’t enjoy them quite as much as I would end up loving lacrosse.
Since seventh grade, I’ve been on many lacrosse teams, all with different dynamics, good and bad. The thing is, you can’t understand what it means to be on a team until you’re a part of one. (Even then, it’s up to you to decide just how much of a part of the team you want to be.)
If you’ve ever played a team sport, you know what I mean. Some of your teammates are your best friends. Some people you love, some you aren’t quite as attached to, some you just don’t understand. I mean it’s Team Sports 101 -- it’s all about cooperation, compromise, and teamwork.
Sometimes, though, you’re lucky enough to find yourself a part of a team that’s truly special. Everything clicks. That doesn’t mean you still don’t get frustrated, or that you’re not frustrating yourself. It’s just bigger than you; the little tics and problems don’t seem to matter anymore.
Everyone always talks about how a team is family, how your teammates are your sisters and your best friends and all of that. But does just saying “sister” or “bff” really sum up all that a truly amazing team is?
It’s more than the wins and losses. It’s not just being friends off the field. It’s not just the strange, slightly-concerning inside jokes, the embarrassing pictures and cringe-worthy stories, and the nonexistent desire for a break from these people that you’re literally never apart from. It’s more than the personal triumphs and individual mistakes, grueling practices in the rain, and conflicted feelings about sprints.
It’s about fighting for success with a group of people as committed to it as you are. It’s about the unspoken understanding between two people in the midst of a high-tension game situation. It’s about not allowing a loss to define you and only working harder after a win. It’s about the mental toughness of a team coming together and rising above the simple pettiness, the incessant worries, and the minor burdens of everyday life, if only for two hours a day. It’s about taking joy in the game -- in the physical pain of pushing yourself to your limit, in the mental fight between instinct and strategy -- and seeing that same joy reflected in the face of the girl next to you. It’s about the mutual awareness that this more than just something that we have fun doing; this is a series of trials: of physical endurance, of friendship, of effort, of patience, of connecting with a group of people beyond what just words and time can bring.
So, back to me (guess I never truly got over that whole selfish thing -- sorry, Mom). I’m lucky enough to be a part of the women’s club lacrosse team at UGA. OK, yes, it’s a club, which doesn’t sound very impressive and is certainly not the same as a varsity team -- but it’s pretty special. Actually, we just won the 2016 US Lacrosse WCLA D1 National Championship, as in we’re number one in the nation for the first time ever.
This win could be attributed to any number of things: the impressive individual skills of each player (really, they could’ve all played at the varsity level); the extra practices and sprints (during finals week too!); or just the total effort and overall commitment of the team (what homework?). Obviously, there’s the amazing coaches, too -- our head coach Adam, who has brought transformation to the program in the eleven years that he’s coached, and assistant coach Callie, a former player turned coach who practically breathes lacrosse. But that wouldn’t even consider the numerous former players -- each woman that has poured her heart into this team during her years on it, whose love for the game (and the dawgs) has inspired and grown the program so that it could be where it is today.
And that’s a big reason that we finally won nationals this year. See, teams don’t lose players and gain new ones. You never really leave a team -- the team just keeps growing. Each year, you’re playing for something bigger.
For more on the UGA Women’s Club Lacrosse team:
(The UGA Men’s Club Lacrosse team is sometimes funny, too.)
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The UGA Women’s Club Lacrosse team dedicated their games in the National Championship tournament to the four girls from UGA that lost their lives in the tragic car accident -- Kayla Canedo, Brittany Feldman, Christina Semeria and Halle Scott. "All dawgs go to heaven, but the best go first."
