Portage Sports Stories | How do we define ourselves?

Sports are filled with a variety of titles.

Coach, starter, captain.

Role player, assistant, letter winner.

Each title is part of what identifies you and your position on the team or inside the program.

Each title is typically the result of hard work and opportunities created for yourself or with the help of others.

In the purest form, though, the titles are only words. More importantly, they are the words that were earned by your actions.

We strive for acclaim and reward, and it is a healthy challenge, but the titles should never cast a shadow over all else.

The title cannot be the only thing that defines you.

If you are the head coach of a team, is that the only title you have?

Or are there unspoken titles that you are immediately affiliated with?

Are you a good listener? A good communicator? A good motivator?

Are you someone that smiles more than you criticize? Can you instill confidence and energy into your players inside of a culture built on teamwork and inclusion?

Can you create an environment that players want to play inside?

If you are the starting point guard, starting quarterback or leading scorer, is that all you are?

Or are you a good teammate? A positive role model for the youth players watching you?

Do you care more about the team winning than your individual spotlight?

Can you create positive energy, be the emotional and vocal leader for a team that will hear and follow you?

For those counting, that is 13 consecutive questions.

All designed to be rhetorical, but hopefully also designed to initiate thought.

For the one title that may be next to your name, it should be a personal ambition to collect as many unspoken titles as possible. They are what will build your personality, character and development — and ultimately will be what lead to the next opportunities for the next title your name may include.

And there is nothing wrong with striving for those opportunities; to achieve the shiny title that advances you to the next level of your career.

The special ones, though, find a way to lift their personal gain at the same time that they lift those around them.

The special ones do it naturally and effortlessly because they do it with honest sincerity.

Be one of the special ones.

It will be one of the best unspoken titles you can ever have placed next to your name.

This article originally appeared on Record-Courier: We all have a title, but what makes us, us?