by Kati Dickson

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  In response to Sara Holloway's "Team Vs. Individual" I just wanted to say that just because you play an individual sport doesn't make you selfish or just think about yourself instead of your team. Every sport has a certain amount of team unity as well as individuality. Take any individual sport, lets start with Cross Country, you score individually, and as a team. You plan with other TEAM members and your coach to discuss how your gonna run the race. Sometimes you pace a teammate, sometimes you pace someone else. You always inspire each other, you run together at practice. Everyone has their place, some get 1st, some 7th, others last, and some stand by and yell your time at you on the sidelines and are waiting with water at the finish line. True everyone has their own pace and their own abilities, but they are all out there for the same thing, to race, to run, to win, and to have fun. At the end of a race, the scores are added up and then you get placed as a team. At district the top 7 runners AND the top 2 TEAMS will compete at state. The top 5 runners from each team score, and all those scores are added up, your team might have got 3rd by one point and because of one runner, but it doesn't matter, you got third, your not going to state.

 Now take a team sport, football, you all work to common goal, to play to win, and to have fun. You work as a team to make things happen. But within that team their are individuals working their butts off so their teammate can finish a play. You can break a football team down to individuals who all have a job, some throw the ball, some catch the ball, some run the ball, and others block so all this can happen, whiles others stand on the sidelines an scream at the top of their lungs in-between giving their teammates water. The point is, they all have individual jobs too. say you have a really great team, except one person, the QB. Even though every other person on that team did their job, because one person, one individual couldn't do theirs, they lose. Maybe you have one person like this maybe you have a whole bunch, either way EVERYONE plays a role in the win or loss. Or in Baseball and Softball, there is never a time when more than 1 person is batting, no 2 people throw or catch the ball at the same time. Every person has thier job. every one has to work hard, and if someone messes up the whole team suffers. Given, there are several things you learn while playing on a team.

You could look at any two individual and team sports and find the same thing, whether it be cross country, swimming, golf, wrestling or track. Whether it be football, basketball, volleyball, baseball, or softball. There is always some individuality, and some teamwork in both. Yes, maybe their is more teamwork in team sports when it comes to getting on a court or out on the field, but I guarantee you every individual sport does the same thing off the field, we all support each other, we all say good job, we all sit there and tell someone after a bad race or a bad match or a bad whatever that it was ok and it will get better and not to worry about it and to get over it and "you'll get 'em next time" just like team sports on the field.

Personally I think that individual sports are funner and more of a challenge. At the end you know you won or lost because of how good YOU are, not anybody else. Your score and your time reflect how hard YOU worked and how much talent YOU have nobody else. In a individual sport YOU determine the end. True, somebody could have a God-given talent and they are better than you, but when you look back in 20 years you'll know that you put everything you had in that competition, and you were beat because of you, not another teammate that you look back on saying "if she would've cought that ball I would have been a state champion" In 20 years I will be able to look back and know that everything I won or lost was because of how hard I worked, nobody else.
And  if you think that is selfish, that’s your opinion, but I think that is what every athlete's goal should be, whether team or individual, to be able to look back and know that you had nothing left to give.

As far as you attack on golf, I am not sure if I would clasify it as a sport either I really don't like golf that much , but the people that go out there and play to win do work at it, they work at technique, and form, and whatever else it takes to be a good golfer. I could sit here and tell you what I think of softball and how I think it is a lazy sport in a lot of ways but i know that their are some people out thier who work really hard and what-not, mainly I just don't want to attack a sport like that.

Your view on winning interests me. It almost sounded like you don't care if you win as long as you have fun. Have you ever won? Because if not you should really try to sometime it is a lot more fun than losing. But if you don't care about winning you probably won't win, unless your playing against a team who doesn't care either, then you actually will have a good game. In my opinion winning is everything and it's the only thing. You can look at winning in different ways, say you are competing at state and you place bad or maybe didn't place at all, did you PR? Can you look back and be proud of yourself for how you played or how hard you worked? If you can, that’s a win in my book. But I defiantly think that if you don't care, then you won't win, and you will look back saying. "If I would've really tried, I bet I could have been good." I never want to say that, I don't know why anyone would.

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