I love team sports because of the lessons it teaches real time. The athlete expose themselves every game to the real world. Unlike being part of a classroom, a club, or even a musical ensemble your mistakes on the athletic field or lack of preparation are exposed for all to see. Certainly, the group in the aforementioned activities suffers as well, but the individual almost never has to face the scrutiny of the world. Good athletes, good coaches ( they are after all, part of the team), and good administrators, should reexamine a loss to see what can be done better. A good team member, realizes they are not doing it just for themselves, but to further team goals.
I always preferred to hire team athletes, all other things considered, because they understood the concept of examining your own efforts to make the whole better. I hate the excuse makers, and the people who accept a loss. I cringe when I hear a coach or a player say, ” Oh, they were just better, or the refs were bad” instead of saying we learned some things today and our experience will make us better.” How about, if we just had more money, we could have better sneakers, then we would have won. Excuses can be just that absurd. That is how you turn a loss into a defeat.
Giving into weaknesses instead of working hard to strengthening some aspect of your game, and learning from a loss, will result in defeat. Administrators have to learn to articulate weaknesses in the infrastructure, coaches have to make sure they give their team an opportunity to prepare themselves, and mentor a good attitude, and individual athletes have to ask themselves, everyday, have I done enough today to make myself, AND MY TEAMMATES better! Is there a skill I must spend some time on, that will make me be a contributor? Do I play hard enough in practice to make the other athletes on the team better?
A season has many ups and downs and there are opportunities and traps, and the true athlete and team member must avoid being defeated and learn from losses.
The Leopards will play number five ranked Albany friday night, and then the following Monday will be traveling to Phialdelphia to meet Drexel. It will be the following Saturday they will resume the all important league schedule with nearby rival, Lehigh in a must win game!! Coach Stone has always told me she recruits athletes of character first. I believe this IS a team of character who will not be defeated!!! Go Pards!!
Lafayette College Field Hockey 