My soccer player has advanced from pee wee soccer, where the “fans” never see the ball for all the little legs scrambling around the vicinity of it. This year, they now play a game that looks more like real soccer. They actually play specific positions and pass the ball to one another. It’s amazing how many more goals they make when they play as a team! Not to mention how much more fun it is to watch.

My volleyball player is in the fifth grade, and this is the entire team’s first year of playing the sport. Now, any of you familiar with 5th grade girls know that being kind to one another isn’t always the norm. But these girls are breaking that norm, thanks in part to their personalities and to the tone set by the coach. To be honest, they aren’t winning all of their games, but they aren’t loosing all of them either. But miracle of miracles, they are very encouraging to their teammates, and are having a great time.

So the moral of the story is, playing as a team doesn’t guarantee you’ll win, but it sure does increase the odds, and it makes the game a whole lot more fun for players and fans alike.