The Importance Of Being A Team Player

Being the mother of three children who all play travel soccer, I think it is safe to say that sport plays a big part in our lives. At times it would be fair to suggest that soccer completely takes over our family life and I wouldn’t disagree. Certainly for 10 weeks straight this past Spring season my husband and I barely saw each other as he traveled to games and tournaments out of state with our son, while I stayed back and traveled closer to home to games and tournaments with our two daughters. Being a part of these teams is a commitment, there is no doubt about that and it’s not just our time that we faithfully contribute but our finances, our emotions and physically it really takes its toll too, so it wouldn’t be unreasonable to ask why on earth do we do it?

 The amount of money we spend on three children with basic fees, uniform charges, equipment costs ( how many bloody times can their feet grow in one year for goodness sakes?) to say nothing of hotels when they travel, eating out three times a day for the tournament weekend away as well as the cost of boarding dogs or other pets while you are away from home is insane. It would be cheaper not to put them in soccer, pay their university fees in full without so much as a thought about possible scholarships and have our lives back completely in the meantime.

But it’s not about the scholarships in the end. It’s not because we think our kids will play MLS soccer or represent USA in the Olympic Games, although believe me there are several parents who behave like they do on a regular basis. For us it’s to provide our kids with another dimension of education.

Teaching children about team involvement is surely one of the most important things we can offer as parents. Whether it’s through the music with the local choir, acting with the community drama club, ballet with a village dance group or indeed sport as we have chosen with our children, learning to work hard and be a positive and contributory part of a team is a tool that can only enhance the development of our children in every single aspect of their lives.

After all, the world is not about singular people or insular people. The world is a community and even though it doesn’t always seem like there is much that the world can all come together for, team involvement, in this instance sport, is something that bonds people, excites groups and unites communities and countries alike.

Take the Fifa 2014 world cup for example. This month long event has nothing short of taken over and for the first time in my experience has swiped up soccer communities across the United States. When we first moved to America 16 years ago finding somewhere which showed the games live was near impossible, not only on home television sets but also in bars too where amazingly you could see almost every sport imaginable, except soccer.  Today however, the world cup has engulfed generations of Americans. Who would have thought that thousands of people would have poured into Grant Park, downtown Chicago and filled it to capacity in order to support their country in a sport that until fairly recently didn’t have much of a following. Bars now have multiple screens showing as many different games as possible and perhaps most amazingly I was able to get a pedicure while watching the first group games in the actual nail salon. There has been an unquestionable shift.

There aren’t many sports in which America puts together a team that represents the nation as a whole (Olympics aside) and so to be able to witness the fastest growing youth sport in the country be able to draw such amazing crowds, has been nothing short of joyous.

The thrill of team spirit, learning to celebrate together, having to work through disappointments as a group both emotionally and physically and above all believing for your team that anything is possible are all attributes that we want our children to experience and to be able to use in their future lives. They are also qualities that we as adults can surely strive to polish too!

So as we personally take a couple of months break from Chicago Fire Junior West soccer practices and games for the summer, we look towards next week and raise the roof with excitement about Team USA beating all odds and getting out of the ‘group of death’ as it has been so lovingly referred to and through to the final round of 16 where they will look to advance even further.

As the Star Spangled Banner rings out for all to hear in Arena Fonte Nova  at 3pm central time on Tuesday, I for one will be saying a silent thank you to the world of sport. Our family will all be watching together and I will be safe in the knowledge that despite the crazy schedule we deal with, our choices are with purpose, they are for good reason and they are all geared towards guiding and raising happy, hardworking, well rounded and positive children who in time will, we hope be an asset to their own communities and will be able to use their own experiences of being team players to continue to educate and inspire the next generation after them.