Practice These 5 Things And Be A Success When You Change Playing From Your Sports Team To Another
By: Dr. Conor Hogan Ph.D.
Tags: First Year Player Draft, Empathy In Sport, Teamwork, Youth Sports, Sports Management

Practice These 5 Things And Be A Success When You Change Playing From Your Sports Team To Another

Photo by Rosie yang on Unsplash

Changing sporting allegiances is difficult but it is not confusing if the player understands their reasons and sees no option but to change.

When I was nineteen years old I changed from my childhood club to their arch-rivals and I never once regretted it. I played for both teams at the highest level and I even played for the second team against my original team, but it wasn’t easy.

As a result, I can recall not being able to stand up straight for a week after we clashed on the field and I had pains in my legs and upper body as well as a few bruises and broken connections with people in my life.

Still, we won the game.

Here are five things that you will need if you are playing against your former teammates. These will begin to get you through the test. And, don’t be fooled into thinking that it is not a ‘test’, because it is, and a huge one at that.

1. Confidence:

You must have self-confidence in your ability. This is easy to talk about and easy to think about, but when it comes to deciding to make the move you must as the well-worn Nike slogan urged ‘just do it!’. It’s so true though. This is a test of your self-confidence, not just in your playing ability but in your ability to relate to others in your new club and to explain things to your former teammates too.

I found out soon after my move to the other club what my natural level of self-confidence was, both as a player and as a person. It is a testing time and the experience teaches you a lot about yourself.

2. Commitment:

If you are deciding to leave your sports team you need to commit to seeing it through. You can be guaranteed that the first thing that will happen when you communicate your decision to leave the first club is that people attached to that club will want to see you fail.

It happened to me and although you`re probably expecting it to happen, you`ll be very surprised with who will want to see you fail.

If you think you’ve put in a lot of commitment in the first club that you`ve played for and that you won’t have to increase that level of commitment in the second club to begin to prove you`re good enough, then think again. Even though you`re joining a new club or organization I can honestly say there will be people at your new club that will not like to see you there too.

I trained harder than I ever trained for the first couple of years after joining the second team because, in my mind, I had something to prove. Although deciding to leave was very difficult, it can be done very quickly. Whereas, the aftermath of that decision can challenge your commitment for a long time to come.

3. Teamwork:

Even people that have never played sport know that the words ‘sport’ and ‘teamwork’ are intrinsically linked. In many cases this is true, but of course, the sports teams that are successful are ones that usually have better and more effective teamwork. This often turns out to be one of the reasons why they are victorious.

But, teamwork is not necessarily linked with a new player who joins a new sports team.

If you perform well at the new team you will threaten other positions on that team who feel they have given loyalty to the team in a time gone by. This can have ramifications on the teamwork and dressing room morale and unbeknownst to yourself, you can be the reason.

Photo by Alexander Schimmeck on Unsplash

4.Friendship:

Great coaches or managers know the value of friendship in sport. Unfortunately, too many don`t understand it when it comes to building a successful club and competing to be a great team. If you are truly committing to playing sport at the highest level, or even the highest level of your ability, you will have to give it everything. This often has knock-on effects on your personal life. Relationships and friendships can suffer.

I know for me they suffered a lot. Not only did I lose so-called ‘friends’ when I moved from one club to another but, my actions were not best received by certain family members either.

5.Empathy:

I mention empathy at this point because I firmly believe; I save the best till last.

If you change sporting clubs and go to your rivals, then empathy will certainly be tested. This test happens for both you as the player who has moved and for other people in both clubs too.

When you move from one club to another you stir up a lot of emotion in people. As sport usually gets by with players practicing and training together closely, often people will not say anything to you but instead, just carry on with the physical rigors of the game.

Sure, if a player has the ability other players will pass them a ball because they have spent years doing this since they were a child. But, if some players feel they have enough time on the ball they’ll consciously avoid passing it to you too, even to the detriment of their team.

From my experience, empathy in sports matters in bringing others together. Being together builds trust and in turn, trust can then progress and improve a team. Yet, the odd thing is in any competition of sport there is only one winner, and the ones that lose often fail to truly understand one another in the first place.