By: Audrey Mast
Being a good teammate is more important than one would think. If you have bad teammates on the team, it could bring not only you but everyone else on the team down.
Gabe Mast is a senior this year, he is a three-year varsity athlete but he was pulled up his freshman year to see what the varsity experience was like for the district games during Covid. We wanted to know why good teammates are important.
“It’s important to have good teammates because when things are going bad those are the people that are there to bring you and the team back up.” Mast noted.
It is important to have quality traits, to be encouraging, to give others support, t0 push others to be the best they can be, and to have respect for others.
Hoyt Ferguson is a four-year high school player and he has had many teammates throughout the years. He has been keeping a mental list of how good teammates act on and off of the field. He said that these teammates “Lead by example, treat others with respect, and put in a lot of work for the sport or sports they are passionate about.” Ferguson (who wore #54) was a senior this year for Hamilton’s Varsity Football team.
Football is not an individual sport, it is a team sport. You can’t have just one person to win the whole game for you. There are many different things that go into a football team. You have all the different people playing at all different positions on offense, defense, and special teams. Not only do you have all those people, but you also have all the backups.
When Joey Klein was asked what qualities he thinks make a good teammate.
“They have to be able to speak up and lead when needed, have respect for everyone, and be a genuinely good person,” senior center Joey Klein commented.
A way that teammates are important, not only for the qualities that they share but the fact that they can help you push yourself to be the best you can be. Just watching them and seeing things they are more skilled at can give you the motivation you need to improve yourself.
Teammates can become your family. When you are on a team, you spend a lot of time with them. Between practice every day after school for two hours, and at the games every Friday when you are hyping one another up trying to beat the other team, you will get close with these people. You are bound to find something that you have in common besides just playing the sport. If you have teammates that are always having a negative attitude or are bossy it can make it hard to enjoy the sport that you are playing.