Audacity Eva APLang podcast episode: Diamond girls

Sports teams often have cliques within them, causing tension and division among teammates. These cliques can include long-standing friend groups, the starting lineup, and a group of seniors who slack off. The lack of diversity within teams contributes to these disagreements. Personal stories reveal how cliques can lead to conflicts, with teammates taking sides and even threatening to quit if a particular coach is hired. The competitiveness within sports also fuels cliques, with a divide between starters and non-starters. Being stuck in the middle can result in feeling isolated and not fully accepted by either group. Cliques extend beyond the playing field, affecting social interactions as well. Despite the negative effects, cliques can also provide a sense of belonging and lead to strong friendships. Ultimately, the positive impacts of cliques outweigh the negatives. With our topic being cliques, it's hard not to address potentially the most prominent cliquey group, sports teams. Although it is important to highlight the way sports teams interact with the rest of the school population as one group, it is more significant to address the groups within the team itself. The cliques on sports teams are like nothing else. You will spend a minimum of two hours a day with this small group, not even counting the hours of time during games and travel. Your teammates will be your best friends and your worst enemies at the same time. From my experience, your choices for friends include the small exclusive friend group that's played this sport together for decades. Good luck fitting into that group. Then there's the obvious starting lineup, including the very talented but also over-confident coach's favorite who has run on varsity since 7th grade. This clique will be nice to you at tryouts and practices, but come down to game time they are focused on nothing but themselves. All that's left is the nice group of seniors who always slack off, so it's not a good look to join that clique. Now you're stuck between groups, scared to be looked down upon by players and coaches but lonely without friends on your team. After some discussion with other coaches and students, it appears that the common root of these disagreements is the lack of difference between the players. Though it may sound like there is a diversity of personalities within a team, it must be remembered that the whole point of a team is to collect a group of like-minded people that work together to reach a goal, whether it be to win a game or finish a research project. Collecting a group of hyper-competitive people and placing them in a tense game setting is just a situation asking to fail. To share more information about this, I've turned to mine and my friend's personal stories about this topic. The most common issue is the divide amongst the groups of a large team. On this particular team, there were about 13-15 players, I can't remember exactly. We started out the season great, everyone got along and we rarely had any tense moments. The team has remained mostly the same for a few years now due to there not being a lot of seniors. However, this past season ended up split apart and there has been an ongoing tension between different groups ever since spring. Due to a disagreement about the decision our coach made, some teammates slowly started to dislike our coach. When these issues were shared with the rest of our team in our group chat, opposing sides began to form, some people backing up the coach's side and a minority siding against the coach. Clicks were formed between players who had similar mindsets. The tension began to display itself during our games when players from different positions would yell and get upset only if certain players made a mistake. This trauma only continued to evolve when the coach retired and a new position was posted. To my knowledge, at least two groups held scheduled meetings with the AD to voice their concerns against people they know who've applied for the position. Some even threatened to quit the sport entirely if a particular coach got the job. As of now, the tension between clicks has made it awkward for me as well as several other players just to interact with other social groups regularly during school. Most clickiness in sports stems off competitiveness. I know in my sport there always seems to be a divide between the starters on the team and the non-starters. This mostly comes from the fact that we are constantly competing against not only our opponents but also each other for playing time. The competition becomes more stressful because of the desire to be in the starting group. This group not only plays together every time but also tends to only practice together and even off the field will hang out together. In one specific example, I got left out because of these groups. I was constantly going back and forth between the groups and I never really felt as if I was accepted by either side. One of my best friends was on the starting side but since I had not been performing as well we were constantly separated. I love my friend but when it was time for her to play the sport she was always so focused on winning. I admire her determination but I also feel as though I could be improving and being a better part of the team if I was practicing with people who could help me improve. If I ever tried to join that side, I would see glares and hear whispers because if I was on that side, that meant that somebody who was usually in the group was no longer there. This would have been okay if I was part of the other click on the team, which was the people that weren't starting, but since I was in the middle, I was not necessarily part of either group. This eventually started going from not just the playing aspect of the sport but to the social aspect as well. I was never playing at the same time each match so when I tried to join conversations it was never something I could relate to. The competition on the team was what formed the clicks but eventually they became part of everything we did as well. Amherst is a very diverse school and there are many different people but I think that since the people on one specific team all have one same interest and are constantly competing with each other to try to improve, clicks naturally form with people who are generally competing at a similar skill level. Clicks often form without realizing it. Another interesting story takes place during the fall sports season. I started my second varsity season with nearly the same team as last year, only this time I thought that we were more closely knit due to some shared experiences with the team last year, but that's a whole different story. So to say the least, I thought this would finally be our winning season. We could communicate effortlessly and I knew how every single girl played. The first week passed like a breeze. Despite being under new coaching, we managed to stay united. It wasn't until the second week that we realized our coach knew nothing about the sport she somehow managed to secure a coaching position in. Suddenly there was debate over who would actually lead practices and a handful of natural leaders emerged to guide us. Of course, few teams can be led by a fellow player and not have any drama or debate. I noticed at first when we would naturally split up into groups of four or five people during downtime. I'd hear whispers of so-and-so secretly hates this other teammate. Harsh comments were made in different group chats. Screenshots of private texts were sent around. Two players even secretly made a lineup and purposely only put in their favorite teammates. So in conclusion, the cliques formed within the team tore us apart. Few groups actually got along and once again it began to show in our performance. Our young coach even staged an intervention in the middle of the season in an attempt to force us to set aside our disagreements for the benefit of the team. All of these stories depict the seemingly unresolvable issues caused by cliques and how a group can have problematic issues within itself. Although all these stories I just shared with you have negative connotations, it is important to remember the positive impacts of cliques as well. Cliques allow for everyone to have a place to feel welcome in a group. And first school sports have introduced me to some of my best friends. So in my opinion, the positive impacts of cliques far outweigh the negative aspects.