As athletes, we work our entire lives to meet a goal that we've set for ourselves. Whether it be to win an award, play at the next level, or simply to end our last season on a positive note, we spend a majority of our time working toward making ourselves better in order to meet the agenda we've created.

Let's be honest. As athletes, we don't choose our dream school and team based off of our potential teammates. We meet the coach, we tour the school, we figure out what we can get out of it and we commit. It’s not that we don’t understand what an impact our teammates will have on us. It’s simply that we know it’s not something we can control and we're looking at what we think is the "bigger picture."

We are aware of the fact that we may luck out and walk into a team of people we click with or we could also walk into a group of players that we get along with well enough to play, but don’t necessarily bond outside of our sport.

If you’re lucky enough to experience the first situation, then you understand what a blessing it is.

You see, when we look past the wins and losses and forget about all of the sport oriented goals we’ve set, we’re left with one thing: our teammates. Years from now, when we’re reminiscing, we’ll remember some specific plays and a few singled out games, but we won’t always remember the scores or the final outcome. What we will remember is the experiences and lessons we came across with our teammates by our side.

To take a group of girls and in some way “force” them together is a hard task, no matter what the reasoning. Take the competitiveness of a sport and throw it into the mix and it may seem a little impossible. A collegiate softball team consists of numerous girls from different areas, backgrounds, and ethnicities. You have girls who are shy and girls who are outgoing. Teammates who spend their free time at home, and teammates who go out on a regular basis. English majors, biology majors, and every other type of major join with one main goal: to compete at a respectable caliber.

However, the aspect of competing in sports isn’t what this article is about. This article is about the way athletics provides the opportunity for players to join a team with a wish to win, and eventually leave with lessons that aid in life outside of sports, along with friends that will be there for a lifetime.

You see, being a part of a softball team enables you to get to know a group of girls inside and out. There is no fooling your team. You see each other at 4:30 a.m. without makeup and at 9:00 p.m. fully dressed up. No matter how your day went, you still see your team's faces at 2:00 for practice. There’s no avoiding them on a rough day, and there’s no hiding behind a smile and moving on. Being a part of a team means spending an uncountable amount of hours together —raw, true, uncensored hours. We see each other at our best—ecstatic and happy after wins, and at our worst —tears running down our faces from a loss. We push each other through our hardest times, and we learn each of our strengths and weaknesses so that we can build off of them. There is no unacceptable way to be around each other, because we love each other for exactly who we are.

We learn through our teammates that, no matter how messed up we think we are, or how differently we operate in comparison to others—we are lovable. We turn to our teammates when our family at home is struggling, when we feel like we can’t make it through a class, and when we’re exhausted to a point of questioning why we’re even here. We share late night heart to hearts about our hometowns, and stories of incidents that shaped who we are as people—not just as athletes. We begin to share things about ourselves that we’ve never shared with anyone else, and no matter how crazy our views are, we turn to a team full of sisters who accept us, flaws and all, whether or not our ways of living are exactly the same. Our eyes are opened through our teammates to things that we would have never understood otherwise. How are we to understand a way of living that we have never experienced? Our often small and sheltered views are expanded as we listen to those we love tell us of things they believe and have lived through. Things that we never thought we could understand or accept, we begin to empathize with. Our teammates become the people we turn to when we need anything because they become the ones we feel completely and utterly accepted with. They become the ones that we understand will give us the best view of what is right for us, whether or not it’s something we necessarily want to hear. Our teammates are who we call at 3 a.m. when we’re crying over a boy, and also at 12 p.m. to brag about the good grade we just made on our final. They’re who we turn to when we’re homesick, as well as who we want to go home with because the idea of the town who shaped somebody so important to us is something we value.

Take away our sport and we’ll be devastated, but take away our teammates and the relationships we’ve formed and our life is turned upside-down. Take away the wins we’ve earned and hell may be raised, but take away the views on life we’ve gained through relationships with teammates, and you take away part of our identity.

I don’t want to imagine my life without softball, but I CAN’T imagine my life or who I would be without having met each and every teammate I’ve played ball with at some point. Who we are as people, and who we will be is greatly shaped by the teammates we spend our four short years of eligibility with. While we will look back and tell plenty of stories of home runs and double plays, the stories we share with our children about life will greatly outweigh our experiences on the field.

Experiences like breaking down on the side of the road on a team trip, or losing a player of our own will shape our worldly views. The good and the bad, the upsetting and the uplifting, the pretty and the often times ugly stories will be shared and remembered for the rest of our lives.

When our child is crying because she feels like she’ll never be good enough to play ball, we won’t share a story of how we hit game-winning double, but instead the story of our teammate who overcame the odds of a shoulder injury and continued playing.

When we experience the horrible realization of losing a loved one, we won’t talk about how great our pitcher threw the weekend after she lost her grandpa, but instead about the nights we spent piled in bed watching movies ignoring her silent cries, yet actually acknowledging them by simply being there for her.

When we eventfully grow up and coach our own teams, we won’t brag only about the championship we earned. Instead, we’ll tell the tale of how it felt to look the person next to you in the eye knowing that you’ve each spent hours and hours preparing for this moment. We won’t recall the last pitch thrown, but the tears in each other's eyes as we hugged each other until the lights on the field were turned off.

No matter what happens in our future, we’ll have experiences to base our understanding off of. When we feel like we need a little extra support, our teammates will always just be a phone call away. This, in the long run, is why softball has made me who I am. This is why I owe more than I can explain to the sport—because it has blessed me with people that have gotten me through my hardest times and laughed with me more times than I can count all while enabling me to make a difference in other’s lives.

They have aided me in becoming who I am.
That is more important than any amount of playing time in the world.