Create Forever Teammates by Patrick Touhey

Author:Patrick Touhey
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Elite Performance Too-E
Published: 2021-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

SELFLESSNESS SELFISHNESS

PUSHING YOUR TEAM TO A NEW LEVEL OF EXCELLENCE

Having done workshops for many athletic teams over the years, I’ve noticed that players often bring up selfishness. As a result, I have become very cognizant to what appears to be an alarming trend of widespread selfishness in today’s athletics and society. But how did we get here? Is it because sports have shifted the focus from being a part of a team to something more individualistic?

As we’ve uncovered in this book, the answer can be found in today’s definition of athlete. Being an athlete means something entirely different than what it used to mean. Today, athlete is synonymous with accolades. Instant gratification, peer approval, and money are more important than anything else. Adult influence has taken away the ability for players to connect with each other. One could even say athletics has become the new stock market.

But even with all of this going on, I stand by the idea that the selfishness we see today isn’t done with bad intentions. This is due to my belief that people aren’t inherently evil, and is instead a learned behavior. On one hand, this makes it extremely hard to expel. When a person has been socialized to act a certain way and value certain things, it takes hard work to reverse this behavior. On the other hand, there’s reason for optimism. If something is taught, it can also be untaught. It’s not easy, but we wouldn’t be in this line of work if we weren’t up for a challenge, right?

The Problem with Today

Sometimes when I walk into a workshop, I won’t say hello. I don’t do this to be rude or standoffish, but instead do it as an experiment. More often than not, the players don’t greet me at all. Not even a simple hello. I also always leave my workshops last, which prompts me to hold the door open for the players as they file out. Ninety-five percent of the time they don’t say thank you.

Think about this. Have you ever had to beg a player to try out for a team because they don’t see any benefit in participating unless they’re getting something out of it for themselves? In my opinion, I think this is a major reason why participation has decreased in high school sports by 43,395 players in 2018–2019.12

Over the years, I’ve had several athletes communicate to me that they realize they made a selfish play just to draw attention to themselves, knowing that it negatively impacted the team. Selfishness has produced players that are egocentric in real-time and do so even if it means losing. Society has taught children to be so self-absorbed that they don’t know how to accept these acts of kindness, nor how to return them. They haven’t been trained to do so.

Stop for a moment to let that sink in. Can you imagine not knowing what to do with an act of kindness? How to react to it? It baffles me. I remember growing up and witnessing the importance of manners and politeness all the time.

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