Love. Honor. Family.
These are the three core values that the Moody Men’s Soccer Team has put together to make us more unified as a team. These values do not solely exist for our team unity, but they are values that spring out of the heart of this team.
Today was the final day of preseason. This was the hardest preseason that I’ve had in the past three years on this team. Through this week, I’ve gotten to go through some of the toughest conditioning as a team, and not as an individual. When tough times come, it is easy to give up; I’m the type of person who has a hard time being self-motivated. If someone wants to run, I’ll run with them, but I have a terribly tough time going by myself. Whenever I do tough things with people, my expectations are raised because I don’t want to let them down. It’s a motivation outside myself.
Since the beginning of preseason, my lower back has been tightening up really tight when I run for a long time. At our final practice today, we had to run suicide sprints. We start at the goal line, then sprint to the 6 yard line, jog back, then sprint to the 18 yard line, jog back, sprint to the half line, etc... you get the picture. I did one set of those, and my back tightened up so badly that it was hard for me to get off the ground.
As the team caught their breath back and were preparing for the next set, I was attempting to stretch out my back, but it was too tight to stretch out. So I was told to jog around the field with Dan and Desch who had different ailments which kept them from the sprints. I got up, and started to jog slowly. Running down my face was a mixture of sweat and tears. Not only because of my pain, but because I felt I let my team down by not being able to finish.
I was so frustrated the entire time I was jogging. I was watching my teammates do suicides while I’m slowly jogging around the field. Is that fair? I didn’t think so. But I could not physically run the sprints. So I kept on going angrily.
As I was going around the goal line, a couple of the guys who were in the middle of the sprints yelled, “Keep up the good work, Sam!” “Keep that pace, you’re doing good buddy” "Continue working hard, Sam, you're doing great." They were encouraging me. ME. If anything it should have been vice-versa. I should have been telling them what a great job they were doing, because they were doing great.
Whenever I heard those words, I realized what our team had meant when we decided our core values: love, honor, and family. They aren’t just abstract values, but lived out practices. The guys on my team love me, honor me, and treat me like family, and it wasn’t until today that I understood fully what that entails. Through the encouragement of that drill, I understood that no matter how much I despise my failures and my inabilities, these guys will love me even through those. They will love and honor me, no matter what struggles and failures I go through. That’s what it means to be a family. That’s Moody Soccer.
These are the three core values that the Moody Men’s Soccer Team has put together to make us more unified as a team. These values do not solely exist for our team unity, but they are values that spring out of the heart of this team.
Today was the final day of preseason. This was the hardest preseason that I’ve had in the past three years on this team. Through this week, I’ve gotten to go through some of the toughest conditioning as a team, and not as an individual. When tough times come, it is easy to give up; I’m the type of person who has a hard time being self-motivated. If someone wants to run, I’ll run with them, but I have a terribly tough time going by myself. Whenever I do tough things with people, my expectations are raised because I don’t want to let them down. It’s a motivation outside myself.
Since the beginning of preseason, my lower back has been tightening up really tight when I run for a long time. At our final practice today, we had to run suicide sprints. We start at the goal line, then sprint to the 6 yard line, jog back, then sprint to the 18 yard line, jog back, sprint to the half line, etc... you get the picture. I did one set of those, and my back tightened up so badly that it was hard for me to get off the ground.
As the team caught their breath back and were preparing for the next set, I was attempting to stretch out my back, but it was too tight to stretch out. So I was told to jog around the field with Dan and Desch who had different ailments which kept them from the sprints. I got up, and started to jog slowly. Running down my face was a mixture of sweat and tears. Not only because of my pain, but because I felt I let my team down by not being able to finish.
I was so frustrated the entire time I was jogging. I was watching my teammates do suicides while I’m slowly jogging around the field. Is that fair? I didn’t think so. But I could not physically run the sprints. So I kept on going angrily.
As I was going around the goal line, a couple of the guys who were in the middle of the sprints yelled, “Keep up the good work, Sam!” “Keep that pace, you’re doing good buddy” "Continue working hard, Sam, you're doing great." They were encouraging me. ME. If anything it should have been vice-versa. I should have been telling them what a great job they were doing, because they were doing great.
Whenever I heard those words, I realized what our team had meant when we decided our core values: love, honor, and family. They aren’t just abstract values, but lived out practices. The guys on my team love me, honor me, and treat me like family, and it wasn’t until today that I understood fully what that entails. Through the encouragement of that drill, I understood that no matter how much I despise my failures and my inabilities, these guys will love me even through those. They will love and honor me, no matter what struggles and failures I go through. That’s what it means to be a family. That’s Moody Soccer.
No comments:
Post a Comment