By Sydney ‘29
Sports are a huge part of a lot of students’ lives. I play basketball and I run track. Those sports are huge commitments and are a part of my daily life. Even though sports can be fun to play, there is a balance that comes with it, and sports isn’t just about making a bucket, scoring a goal, or hitting your serve over the net. Most sports are team efforts. When playing on a sports team, one person can’t do everything by themselves and there’s an equal distribution of what role each teammate plays, which can be the real difference in a great team.
Everyone has their contribution to the team. Whether it’s cheering on your teammates from the sidelines, or scoring points in the game. Everyone’s role plays a part in making or breaking a team. There are different aspects of teamwork. I’ve learned by playing sports at Harvard-Westlake that it’s all about communication and problem-solving skills. If you don’t talk to your teammates and communicate your feelings, the team will become dysfunctional and fall apart.
If a lot of people disagree on something you need to effectively problem-solve into working out a solution that benefits the whole team. As a basketball player at HW, I have had countless moments where my team has disagreed on something. Sometimes, me and my teammates don’t all agree on what play we should run, so we try and problem-solve to find an effective solution that everyone can agree on. As a team, we successfully communicated our feelings to one another and found a way to make everyone happy in the end.
Another thing sports has taught me is sportsmanship. Nobody likes losing, but that’s just a part of life. You’re going to lose and you’re going to win but you don’t want to get upset about losing because it happens. Sports has taught me about facing adversity and bouncing back from it. I know what it’s like to lose multiple games in a row and it’s not a good feeling, but it taught me to overcome and persevere. I had to be happy for the opposing team, show good sportsmanship, and not be a sore loser.
Playing sports also comes with a great deal of responsibility and commitment. Showing up to practice every day, and putting in 100% effort, takes a lot of time. Sports has taught me how to balance my school life, my extracurricular activities, and my social life. All of these things are super important, but you can’t just focus on one, and sports has taught me to manage each.
Joining a sports team at Harvard-Westlake was super influential to me. It taught me how to be a better leader, and role model, and take responsibility for my actions. All of which will benefit me throughout school and in life.
