
This month our theme is sports and teams. What makes them good, what makes them bad? Why are some so much better than others?
When my youngest son was in first grade, I made him a polo shirt with the San Antonio Spurs logo and his initials. These were the Tim Duncan years, and if you know basketball, you know that is a long time to be in love with the sport of basketball.
The school officials weren’t happy about the shirt. They had a no-logo policy for school uniforms. Henry was crushed when he couldn’t wear that shirt to school. To this day, he still has that shirt.
Henry was always a pretty good shooter, but he was never the tallest, fastest, or, strongest kid on the team. I coached him in those days, and we won a lot of games. That has been a hallmark of Henry’s career. His teams have always won.
Considering his lack of height or athleticism, it is nothing short of a miracle that Henry, now a 5th year senior in college, is still playing organized basketball. All those gifted athletes he grew up with gave up the sport a long time ago. But that is the thing about Henry. He never gave up. He was probably the worst listener I ever coached, but he never gave up.
In middle school and high school, before he went away to boarding school to play, we got up while it was still dark and got to the gym an hour before school started so Henry could get up some shots. And we always talked about the team – who was on board – who was rocking the boat. Was the coach helping or hurting? What was it all about?
At the end of this month, Henry’s playing career will be over, long after we expected it would be. As he winds down his college playing career, I asked him to share some thoughts on his basketball journey. I read these words as a very proud father.
Mudita – By Henry Meyers

As long as I can remember, I’ve always loved basketball. Since my earliest age, I’ve had a basketball in my hands. As I’ve gotten older and the world around me has changed, the one constant pillar in my life has been the bouncing ball. Every major decision I’ve made – from the time that I was a toddler – has been made withthe game in mind.
Now as a 24-year-old, fifth-year senior approaching the final month of my career, I write this and wonder what exactly is the reason – through the good times and the bad – that this game has kept me coming back.
College basketball can be a difficult world to navigate. My career has had its share of twists, turns, and ups and downs. I’ve experienced the highest of the highs and lowest of the lows. At the end of the day, even at the small college level, college athletics is a business – and the objective is to win games. The oftentimes transactional nature of college athletics can lead one to very easily lose sight of their love for the game or the reason they began playing in the first place.
This leads me to my main point, which is a quote from my college coach. Though it might sound simple, it is without a doubt my favorite saying of his. He says, “The greatest part about sports is being on a team.” The first time I heard him say this was my junior year after we had dropped two games in a row, and tensions were high throughout the group as many players were unhappy with their playing time and roles. The moment I heard him say this, something in my brain instantly clicked. I realized that while yes, I do love basketball, the thing that has kept me coming back, year after year, is the team.
As my career draws to a close next month, what I will miss most about basketball is being part of a team. And throughout my time playing basketball, I’ve been on all different kinds of teams. So, what makes a team good or bad? Successful or unsuccessful? The reality is, I’m still not entirely sure.
However, one thing that I have certainly learned to be the case through my experiences with a variety of teams is that yes, while sports are ultimately results-driven, the actual results are only one measure of success among many others. I’ve had miserable experiences on winning teams, and I’ve had wonderful experiences on losing teams.
And the only reason that I think that is possible is because I believe that the core nature of great teams is selflessness. So, if one team wins a game in spite of their selfishness, while the other team loses despite their selflessness, to me that would be an example of the result merely reflecting one piece of data, rather than telling the whole story. Though it may sound simple, I think the best teams are best at putting the team first – which takes unrelenting, constant work.
Sports are great because you don’t know what’s going to happen. You may have an idea of what you think may happen, or perhaps one team is favored by a large margin over another. But if we truly knew exactly what was going to happen before tip-off, then obviously no one would watch! Similarly, it is impossible to know what goes into winning. While great coaches have their unique approaches, at the end of the day, they are only theories. I say that as someone who believes deeply that there is a right way and a wrong way to treat the game.
It is impossible, with any scientific accuracy, to determine how team culture impacts on-court success. But over the years, this has made me realize that simply chasing on-court success in the first place is a losing strategy. My college coach often asks our team “What comes first, the winning or the joy?” This is what I believe makes great teams, great. They don’t prioritize winning; they prioritize the team. More specifically they prioritize the relationships between everybody involved, from the coaches to the players, to the parents, to the support staff, and everything in between.
My high school coach calls this Mudita, a Buddhist term meaning “the vicarious joy for others’ success.” In my experience, the teams with the best Mudita never lose.
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