i'm coming to take you away

little bit more of a personal reflection on the season.

started out as a tryout. the whole time, nervous as hell. every throw, cut, sprint, could be my last, for 3 months. every day i could receive a call or email saying thanks, but no thanks. during this time, i was in constant competition with everyone on my team. instead of using this time to start becoming a team for me, i had to try and be better than them, see them as enemies. not a real healthy start to building team cohesion for me.

after making the team, still there was this sense of weirdness. everyone welcomed me, but i was the only person on the team that had not been teammates with at least one other person before on the team (exception being jeff but i didn't really have the same type of attitude and was a much different player, so hard to include that). that made it tough to really connect. even the people who were new, had been on teams in the past with other players.

this also made it difficult to really be the type of player i am. it also ended up with a lot of little "compliments" that weren't especially helpful, but rather like when you talk to a puppy for taking a dump outside. yes, i am actually happy the puppy did it outside, but it is pretty expected not only of me, but everyone else and it isn't that big of a deal. it made me feel like they had zero confidence in my to do the right thing, so when i did, it was party time. argh.

the type of player and person i am, i really like to get pumped up and motivate people. i really couldn't do that on this team. next year, i will. it seems like this whole year was an extended getting to know you session. a couple times during the finals, i wanted to call a timeout and talk to people, some deep breaths, you know the drill. but i didn't feel comfortable doing that, not saying it would have helped, but it has in the past. the role i have played on past teams has me excited to get people ready to play, mentally and physically.

for next year, i am going to do just that. i am going to be in very good shape and also be much more vocal and feel as though i am contributing more to the overall greatness of our team.