A football team is a close-knit unit, working together to achieve a universal goal. They practice together, they play together, they tour together, they eat together and play matches together. Functioning as a well-oiled machine, every team member must do their part to keep the machine running at its best.
Choosing the best athletes for a team is not done lightly and a lot of preparation goes into selecting members for a specific team.
Choosing the Best Athletes for a Team
In American Football, the preseason is one of the ways to evaluate your team and its players. Preseason matches do not count points towards the formal season and will not influence the outcome.
Matches played during this time allow the coaches the opportunity to find the correct athletes for their team, the correct combinations for players, and to judge the performance of each player.
Building a Football Team to Become an Organized Unit
To become a successful, organized team unit, team building exercises are done regularly. A team can only perform as well as its weakest link. Team building works toward eliminating weak links through working towards each player’s strengths.
Activities that Strengthen a Team
Communication is key to understanding each other, understanding the different skills of each individual, and using that know-how to the team’s advantage. Teaming up and completing tasks while communicating with each other to achieve points is a good exercise to practice this skill.
Communication without speaking can be more difficult, but also an important skill to learn to use in a match situation. Learning to read your team member’s eyes, may be essential in certain game actions.
Trusting each other is another particularly important skill to learn. When playing a match, each team member must learn to trust their teammates to know that they can perform what is expected of them. A blindfolded team member must navigate completing a task while given instructions, or directions, by another team member.
Do Fun Things Together
Learning more about each team player outside the sports arena helps to create a better grasp of each person’s reality.
Talk together about anything but sports. Help someone solve a problem that is not team- related. Ballet is good for flexibility and agility. Take a ballet class.
Together, support a chosen school and its activities. Supporting the community will build lasting relationships between players and supporters. A team’s unity and strength come from the time the members of the team spend together to build relationships and create memories.
Interesting Football Team Facts
From 1979 to 1992 the Browner family had 4 brothers playing in a football team at the same time. 373 families had brothers that played in NFL teams at the same time. 217 pairs of sons and fathers played together in NFL teams. 55 Players older than 40 years of age played in the NFL. They were playing as quarterbacks, punters, or kickers.