Individual team sports like swim, tennis, golf and cross country often breed unnecessary tension between athletes who are supposed to support each other. These kinds of sports may technically fall under the team category at the collegiate level, but at their core, they are almost entirely based on individual performance.
I have been a golfer for most of my life, picking up the sport when I was just five years old. I played in junior leagues, junior tournaments, high school, and now college, and one thing I’ve noticed as I’ve gotten older is that golf is a solitary sport. Sure, you can play it with buddies on the weekend, but at a competitive level, it’s lonely.
In high school, golf was the sport girls took when they wanted to get out of P.E., not because they were interested in it. When I started my freshman year, I was almost immediately iced out by the other girls because I truly wanted to do well and improve my game. It was such a clique-y environment that I quickly began dreading practices.
Cross country and swim are both sports where results are almost entirely based on individual performance and require minimal cooperation between athletes. A unique perspective can be found with tennis, however, as those athletes play both in singles and pairs, giving them an opportunity to experience the differences between individual play and team play.
“It’s a lot more fun having someone next to you on the court rather than being completely alone … it’s less pressure on me,” said Kylee Limpias, a junior on the Regals tennis team at California Lutheran University. “Then, in singles, you’re just completely alone on the court … you have to adapt to the challenges on the court by yourself, rather than having people next to you help you overcome those challenges.”
Limpias also said that playing an individual sport with teammates is typically a source of motivation for her. There is always a sense of rivalry between teammates, but Limpias said that internal competition produces better athletes as it pushes everyone to improve, rather than being a hindrance.
“I feel like if I was comparing myself to other players on my team and their stats, it would kind of motivate me sometimes, but then other times maybe I would feel like I have to hold myself to a higher standard to compete alongside my teammates,” Limpias said.
I’ve been in that same situation with golf. In most cases, seeing my teammates play well makes me want to do better myself, but sometimes it’s easy to get wrapped up in a spiral of emotions, thinking I’m not good enough to compete with them. When you start putting pressure on yourself to perform, it can be a slippery slope into negative self-talk.
“Rather than the competition acting as friendly motivation toward a common goal, there can be fixation on the success or failure of your fellow athletes. If someone is focused on these thoughts, they can believe they are experiencing a failure simply by someone else succeeding,” said Ricardo Cornejo, a staff psychologist with Counseling and Psychological Services.
Realistically, this is a sentiment that any athlete can relate to, but I believe that individualized sports make it more pronounced. Players can inadvertently put so much pressure on themselves to be better than their teammates that ultimately, they make themselves worse.
“When your focus of being better starts making you feel worse, [or] burnout, [it’s not a] healthy mindset,” said Dinkenesh Coltvet, a senior on the Regals track and field team.
It’s not just the comparison between teammates that’s an issue, but it’s the players’ attitudes as well. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard an athlete complain about trash-talk on their team. And I don’t mean the playful, razzing kind of trash-talk. I mean the uncomfortable kind that hurts to hear, or that makes your chest tighten.
“I think just in general, we’re at an age group right now, where people can be very cruel. Where it can feel clique-y or like it’s more a social group rather than a team that’s supporting each other,” said Faith Timney, a senior on the Regals swim team.
Coltvet had a similar sentiment to share and said that teammates who fail to encourage each other make a team feel more hostile. When cliques form, the team is separated, and someone is always left out. Every kind of team is going to have cliques to some degree, but when you’re an individual, that isolation is felt tenfold.
This isn’t to say that any level of tension on a team is bad. It’s when that tension is taken to an extreme that it becomes harmful. Tension should not mean a lack of support, rather, it should be a tie that binds athletes together.
“Your main focus [should be] on team cohesion because that’s more important than competition. You are building a family that supports one another and wants the best for each other,” Coltvet said.
