It's All About The Team by Megan

It's All About The Team by Megan - February 2017 Scholarship Essay

It was senior year cross country season, and I thought I had everything planned out. Practice hard all summer, race well every meet, and go to state. Sadly, this was not how things turned out.
When I found out over the summer that we had two new transfers coming to our team, I had no worry in my mind that it would affect my plans. One of the transfers was going to be one of our best runners, which worked out perfectly in my head because we only had one senior on varsity last year, so we had a spot open. The other was close to my pace, which I knew but did not worry about. This was not to say that I did not believe she was a good enough runner, I just wanted my season to go perfectly. My plan for her was that she was going to pace me and make me faster.
I soon started to notice that my race times were not where I had expected them to be and they did not show signs of improving anytime soon. My dream of a perfect season had disappeared. She was now more than a minute ahead of my time and I knew she was going to be the last spot on the team for state. It would be an understatement to say that I was crushed at first. For a while, I was very bitter towards her and my coach about the situation.
One day though, I was stretching after practice and realized how immature I was behaving about the whole thing. I was being selfish and only thinking of myself, when I should have been thinking about the team as a whole. We had the most talented group of runners we had ever had in school history. That was something to be grateful for, not to be bitter about. After that day, I began to push my team harder and help everyone, not just myself. Leaving my bitter attitude behind, I saw an improvement in the whole team’s attitude and left practice feeling happy everyday.
I now look back and can see how much better the season was when I had a positive mentality and worked hard for the betterment of the team, not just myself. Though I did not end the season reaching the goal I began with, I felt more than satisfied with how much work the team and I had put into every moment. It was my most successful season.