“Team sports aren’t my thing”…

…or so I once thought.

I gave team sports a shot in middle school by playing on my school’s basketball and softball team. But both endeavors didn’t play out well. All I could remember from playing basketball was being shouted at from all directions of the gym when I had possession of the ball and feeling extremely anxious and frazzled. I definitely didn’t know what I was doing and I felt like I was always letting my teammates down. My lasting memory from playing softball was one day during practice, one of my teammates did a practice swing on home plate and let go of the bat, which flung right into my gut. I ended up going to the hospital and it was a miracle I didn’t have any serious injuries.

After all of this happened, I’m pretty sure I subconsciously decided team sports just weren’t my thing. And any time this issue came up and I needed to explain myself, I’ve always said something along the lines of, “I hate the idea of getting injured because of someone else’s lapse of judgment or potentially being the reason ‘my team’ lost a game.” Not that individual sports would eliminate all risk of injury or feelings of disappointment, but at least for non team sports, the only factor I’d have to deal with or worry about is myself, which was mentally a lot easier for me to accept.

Aside from my short dabble with team sports in middle school, basically all of the physical activity I incorporated into my life wasn’t team oriented. I gravitated strongly toward individualized sports. I ice skated, skied, danced, played tennis, and participated in track & field. Sure I danced in a group class and did track & field with a team, but what I did was still independent from everyone else. A misstep in dance class wouldn’t have greatly affected the other dancers, nor did my slow 200m sprint time affect the 4x1 relay. Even through college I continued doing physical activities that weren’t team oriented, like yoga and climbing.

I was totally convinced that I’d never participate in a team sport, not even a casual game of beach volleyball. I was so terrified of embarrassing myself or letting other people down. It was just easier for me to not even risk dealing with those emotions. Plus, I was very content with the physical activities I already did.

Fast forward to May 2021 when I was working at a summer camp. One day after dinner, someone I worked with brought a frisbee out to one of the large fields and invited people to just toss it around. I probably hadn’t tried to throw a frisbee in close to a decade, but I wanted to make friends and get to know people better, so I joined the group. To my surprise, I was decent at it which gave me a confidence boost. It also helped that the person who started this group was also very encouraging and intentional about not making anyone feel bad, which made me a lot more comfortable with participating.

Throughout the summer, a few ultimate games were held here and there but I never quite had the courage to join. Though many other counselors encouraged me to hop in, running around on a field with 13 other people, while remembering who is and isn’t on my team, and trying not to fumble the disc was too much for me to handle all at once (especially since I haven’t played any kind of team sport in a very long time.) I wasn’t ready for any of that, so I was just a spectator.

The summer came to an end and haha… surprise, that person who got people to toss the frisbee around that one night wound up becoming my boyfriend, and when I finished my summer job, I visited him in his hometown. I found out that he played ultimate with his friends on a weekly basis at one of the fields on his college campus and naturally, he invited me to play with him. I still couldn’t fathom dealing with all the factors that come with playing a team sport, so I opted to watch. However, after a few games when I got a better feel of what playing with his friends is like, I decided to give ultimate a try.

I was very nervous and my skills weren’t fantastic. Sometimes I wouldn’t know who to throw the frisbee to. But I got by and for the most part, was able to keep up with everyone else. There also weren’t any spectators and the teams weren’t big like they were at camp, so I felt like the stakes were a lot lower. As I got more practice transferring my disc skills to the game, learning the tactics of defense, and mentally handling all of the moving parts, I slowly began to experience the joys of a team-oriented game.

Knowing where my teammate planned on running without any obvious cues, or throwing successful long passes were a couple of things that got me to see how cool and rewarding team sports could be. It also helped a lot that his friends had great sportsmanship and I was never made to feel bad about messing up.

For the next year, I occasionally threw the disc around and continued to play ultimate with my boyfriend and his friends. Some games made me feel invincible and there were others where I couldn’t throw straight at all. But overall, ultimate was shaping up to be a team sport I actually enjoyed playing. Not getting injured also contributed positively to how I felt about the sport.

So when I came home this past September to start a job and was figuring out what I wanted to incorporate into my weekly routine, I decided to look for a pick-up ultimate group to join. I figured finding a group like this would help me keep improving my ultimate skills, exercising interesting,  and expanding my social circles.

Through a website called meetup.com, I found a group that met every Sunday morning and was only a 15 min drive away. Even though I was excited about going for all the reasons I said above, I was still nervous about playing with strangers. (Are they going to be nice? Do they get a little physical? What if I get hurt? What if they think I play like dog shit?) I had a lot of worries about going but as the saying goes, ‘you won’t know unless you try.’ And worst case scenario, if it ends up not working out, I just won’t go again.

I drove to the park early (which was the smart thing to do). I had some trouble finding the exact spot where this game was happening but I eventually found it with time to spare. I approached the group of people who were already there and introduced myself. Though they weren’t very talkative, I didn’t feel any resistance when I asked to warm up with them. I also consciously tried to not let the fact that most of the people there were male intimidate me. (I wanted to prove to myself that I could hold my own with this group.) After about 15 minutes of warming up and the rules were explained, the game started.

I had a fantastic time. I made accurate passes and swift catches, and was overall playing on par, if not better than at least half of the people there. Some players even came up to me to ask if I had been playing for a long time or to just complement my skills. The energy of the game was also great. Everyone had sportsmanship and played a competitive but not aggressive game. I went home feeling really content and happy that I took the leap to check this group out.

I’ve now been attending these games consistently for over a month and I see myself continuing to go for as long as I can. I’m super proud of myself for all of the little steps I took out of my comfort zone and being able to move past my previous negative experiences with team sports. Without any of that growth, I would’ve never known how fun playing a team sport could be or been able to meet new people through ultimate.

It took me about 1.5 years to go from thinking team sports will never be my thing to always finding myself counting down the days until my next game. This growth has shown me that no matter how steadfast I may be on a certain stance, there’s always a chance for it to evolve (and sometimes in very surprising ways). I’m really happy about the unexpected journey I had with team sports and I look forward to see how life changes other long-head beliefs I have.