Reflective Essay: The Value Of Leadership In Sports

Throughout my life, there have been many people who I encountered to claim that they are leaders. Usually, these people accumulate the collection of individuals who was bestowed the title of leadership by those in authority. The false essence, that leadership is given should be altered to the essence that leadership is earned.

Finally, my baseball season was over as we lost to a better team in the playoffs. Never in my life was I excited to lose. Since I was one of the worst players, in which I sat on the bench in almost every game, I didn’t want to waste my time in the sport. Eventually, I sat out a year of playing the sport to run track instead. Even though the track was good for me, I never really enjoyed it that much. I was still determined

to finish the season. As the track season ended and the next season approached, I decided to go back to baseball since I couldn’t not stay idle in the house and track wasn’t for me.

Since the baseball season didn’t officially start yet, I decided to go to the baseball field on the weekends to work on various baseball skills with my dad. As we pulled up to the field, I saw two other people practicing on the field too. I assumed that the two people there were a random coach and player. While my dad and I were throwing baseballs and other catching drills, the coach approached us. He introduced himself as the new Red Sox coach. This was my new coach as I had to make an impression on him to kick-start my baseball career. After a long practice, he became impressed with my talent and told me when the first practice was. This season was going to go great.

Sadly, only three new players came to the practice.

They couldn’t play baseball to save their life. Reality hit me when I realized that this was just an expansion team. I thought I chose the wrong team as we lost our first three games by a blowout. . While I couldn’t show my displacement with how the team was playing, I showed my commitment to the team by coming to each of the practices. We never had more than seven players show up to practice.

Eventually, our fourth game arrived. Minutes before the game, they were sitting down proclaiming that we lost as the coach wasn’t at the game yet. My teammates already decided that they were defeated. I had enough as yelling to them a short speech. In summary, I told them everyone was tired of losing and to stop giving up mentally. They eventually got up and started warming up. it felt good knowing how I just move my teammates. I thought my speech was the turning point in the season toward winning. Sadly we lost again, but by only two scores. This was the closest score, we had this season.

After that moment, I knew I had to become a leader for this team. I couldn’t quit for them as I was needed in order to keep them believing in themselves. Eventually we didn’t better than what was expected to advance to the second round of the

playoffs.