There is no 'I' in team

I’m going to be shunned by all of my high school readers for what I’m about to say. 

“Team work makes the dream work!” Is that saying super corny? Yes. But is it true? Definitely.

Ever since I was little, people have been grinding that into my head. Mostly in sports. In high school, our teams went through some tough times. We had the athletes, we just didn’t have a great team attitude. I was just as guilty as anyone else when it came to not being a great teammate. One thing I have noticed over the years is that teamwork can make or break a team. You can have a ton of great athletes who only care about themselves and they eventually fall apart. On the other hand, I’ve seen teams with just average athletes do extremely well because they worked well together.

I don’t normally think of track as being a team sport, but at the Lake County meet last week, there were a few great team performances. I watched the Charlo boys’ relay team drop the baton in the short relay, then come back and win the long relay, finishing just a few seconds slow of qualifying for state. It was a good recovery from their earlier drop. They went on to qualify for the state meet on Saturday. Good job guys!

Not to talk up the Charlo kids too much, but at that same meet in Polson, right after the boys’ long relay, the Charlo girls’ relay also won and qualified for state, thanks in part to an amazing fourth leg by freshman Allie Delaney, but also due to a great team effort.

My feature story this week is on the MAC softball team, another great example of teamwork. The Arlee/Charlo rivalry this year has been a little tense. But, during softball, the girls give it up and join with Mission to form a softball team. There doesn’t seem to be any animosity between them, which is pretty cool. In fact, they said it makes it more fun to play against each other during other sports. I think that’s pretty cool.

You might not think of tennis as a team sport either, but when you’re talking about doubles, teamwork is extremely important. I played doubles for three years in high school. There needs to be a lot of communication to be successful. I had fun on Saturday watching the Polson doubles teams play. Newcomers Wyatt Ducharme and Hudson Smith were still working out some kinks, and Matt Sitter and partner Cadis Chowning worked through a tense match.

The point is, being a good teammate is important, and getting kids to buy into that is maybe sometimes a little tough. But when they do, you can tell, and those teams are definitely the most fun to watch.