Positivity makes for winning teams

  I have been a part of many teams, more specifically basketball teams. 8th grade was my first experience of team sports. Even though we won a lot of the games, a few players would bash on everyone else and just kill any confidence the others would have. 8th grade was definitely not a good experience for me but middle school sports isn’t that all too serious. My next team was after the middle school season and me and a couple of friends wanted to play more basketball, so we went to an AAU tryout. This team is the complete opposite of my middle school team, even though we didn’t win that much, the practices were actually fun and I enjoyed the people I was around. The result of this was I actually wanted to be on the court, my confidence during middle school ball was very low and sometimes I didn’t even want to step foot on the court. My teammates and coaches during AAU believed in me and trusted me, because of that I wanted to push myself every single practice, as you shouldn’t need to be told to work hard that probably means you're not working hard. Freshman year was similar to my 8th grade year where my confidence dropped really low and I just wanted the season to be over. Of course no one is perfect, I wasn’t the greatest player but it didn’t help that my teammates kept putting me down. This year was an amazing season, the team was not only talented but I enjoyed the people I was around. We were getting great wins, while being a less selfish team and sharing the love. We were positive and had each other's backs, of course we could have achieved more but I’m proud of my team. What makes a good team? Of course you need the skills and talent but also you need the positivity. You should be having fun while playing sports, you should feel like you belong in a team. We have seen many pro sports teams with the top talent implode because of personality conflict and people playing the blame game.