In recent days we have witnessed many members of the Australian Olympic Swim Team being heavily criticised for their individual and group stupidity that has emerged from childish antics, in London, just before last year’s Olympic Games. One of the most revealing themes that is emerging relates to the selfishness of a few that affected, not just individuals performing well below their best, but also the overall performance of the swim team and the medal tally.

One hopes that this behaviour is not true of our sportsman at Newington. One hopes that it is not true that team members are directly rebelling and challenging team selections and coaches’ advice. One hopes that it is not true that individuals in summer teams whether it be rowing, cricket, swimming or tennis are putting their own selfish interests, and their egos, way before the well-being and success of the team.

Surely of all schools, with our foundation in the Christian faith, we would not see selfish individualism threaten team unity and team health. We have the example of a founder who jeopardised his own life for the well-being of the “team” – who was prepared to be totally given over to the well-being of his friends and followers. Surely our students understand these things and reflect them in the way they behave, and the way they look at life.

Parents we need your help too. Coaching sports teams is difficult enough a task with pre-season planning, running coaching sessions, studying the opposition and motivating the members of a team. What is really gutting is the added distraction of disunity and negativity engendered by a lack of trust and acceptance by individual boys and their parents of coaching strategies and coaching decisions. I need to say quite strongly, that after 25 years of working in schools, it is my observation that 99 per cent of all coaches do not show bias to any particular student above another. They weigh up selections and they think through, often over sleepless nights, team strategy. They are empathetic to the disappointment of a boy who is dropped from a rowing eight or is cut from a tennis team, or is asked to bat in a different position, or swims in a least preferred event. Coaches are on your side and on the side of the boys. However it is the best interests of the overall team and the success and health of the team that the coach is most focused on.

We must preserve and make as our priority at Newington the emphasis on team unity and team health. This is a lesson for life. Society has enough noxious pressure towards individualism which reinforces an egocentrism that saps life of meaning and fulfilment. There are already too many solitary and miserable people walking the streets of Sydney. We at Newington must be a community together, and like the strands of a rope we depend for our strength and vitality on the individual strands being bound together as one – or as the very pragmatic James puts it in the Bible,

“You can develop a very healthy, robust community that lives right with God and enjoy its results only if you do the hard work of getting along with each other, treating each other with dignity and honour.” (James 3:16)

David Williams
College Chaplain