In December 2002 at the Winter Family Weekend in Lexington, Kentucky, I played on a team (the Pittsburgh Posse B team) that lost all six of its games, coming in at 16th place out of 16 teams.  I was a benchwarmer on this team, a backup point guard.  One learns a lot more about one’s teammates and one’s character during times of adversity than one learns from success.  The sporting world is a good metaphor for life in this case because the competitive nature of athletics allows for character to be seen in its good and bad forms very easily.  Let us examine the role of adversity with regards to team chemistry.

I am someone who loves sports, but is not a hugely gifted athlete.  I am best at volleyball, where I am at least a competent player, and if my knee and feet are cooperating I am at least a reasonably skilled nickel cornerback or slot receiver in a touch football game.  I am also a decent passing and defending point guard (though I could use a lot of work on my shooting) in basketball.  In my life I have played mostly on moderately skilled teams, the nadir being that performance in Lexington.  I have a lot to be proud of with my teammates on that 2002 squad though, for even though we lost every single game we played, we never stopped fighting, and never stopped giving it our all.  If you’re going to lose games because people cheat and take time off the clock improperly (as happened in our last game that year), you can’t lose your head.

Games are a lot more fun when you’re winning, though.  The foibles and personality conflicts with one’s teammates are a lot less annoying when you’re winning games.  What one finds out is that some people are just really sore losers, sulking and hard to be around, while others are able to be more stoic about it, less angry at the mistakes of refs or the normal blunders that mar all human endeavors (including athletics), and more determined to do better in the future.

When you’re doing well, the enjoyment of victory covers serious flaws–the enthusiasm of success and growth is enough to hide flaws of worldview and perspective and personality disagreements.  But when adversity comes, one sees whether one is really part of a team, or whether it was simply a marriage of convenience between people with very different ways of behaving and very different systems of belief.  We only find out who we are by trials and adversity, even if all of us enjoy winning and the good times a lot more.  Hopefully we are able to build on that resilience from adversity to lead to future successes, whether in the athletic realm or elsewhere.