Great Teams - The Seven Essentials

"Teamwork makes the dream work."

If you have ever experienced the miracle of a great team as either a player or a coach, it is something that you will always remember. Making a team a great team involves choices that are in the control of the participants. Building that team involves believing, becoming, and belonging. It is bringing together a group of people with diverse skills, beliefs, and destinies in a way that they wholeheartedly give themselves to the team in order that both the individual and the group may reach their full potential. Few experiences can be as powerful in the growth of a young athlete as being part of a selfless team working toward a common goal.

Many coaches look at team spirit as an intangible thing that some teams have and others do not. It's the leaders' job to teach, promote, and build this attitude, and not leave it to chance. The coach must use every bit of his creative energy to develop team spirit within his or her players. He or she must find opportunities to encourage teamwork and unselfishness every day. Though many life-long relationships are fostered through athletics, some of the greatest memories an individual ever experiences are those that are discovered when he or she is a member of a "special" team. These are the teams that learned the lessons the coach was trying to teach, and which accomplished goals together that they could have never done by themselves. By correctly applying all the essentials for team building, a coach can enhance the worth of the team many times over the total sum of its parts.