all for one, one for all

This was the Overlee Community Association Swim Team's motto. We all cheer and support the individual swimmer, but the individual swimmer supports and swims for the collective team.

I started on this team every summer since I was 8. I grew up hanging out with 18 year olds all summer as an 8 year old. We painted spirit signs, came up with skits, practiced swimming every day, and most of all competed together. Only 3 kids could swim in a single event every meet, so not all 200+ swam in the competitive meets. But what was cool about Overlee, was that so many of the swimmers were fine just showing up and cheering even if they weren't swimming in the meet. This was the role I fell into, and discovered there was a whole opportunity to effect the competitions in this way. If you could sike up the 8 year olds enough, they may come from a 6 place seed to win the whole thing, and their points counted the same as the 18 year college-bound swimmers.

My senior year, my fellow graduates and I got together and decided that year was going to be all orange everything. Everything we did was focused on Overlee and orange. We would wear all orange jumpsuits to meets, our shirts had to be orange, we would make tons of giant flags with our logo on them. If a cheer, skit, or activity wasn't about focusing the team back on itself then we skipped it. For our last meet, against our similarly undefeated rival, we devised a whole plan of how our team was going emerge onto the pool deck. By running through a paper sign out of our locker rooms, like a football team. 8 year olds were screaming, older kids flexing, it was intense but the team was ready to give all they had for each other in that meet.

As I sit back and think about it today, I realize what was so crucial to building winning seasons together with my peers and coaches, collective vision. I mean you could literally feel the heart beat of the team and energy building each week for the next swim meet.

As a leader, this made me realize how important it is for all teammates to have collective ownership over a shared vision. This leads to wins.