How to Build Team Spirit

An important part of being on a team is team spirit, the sense of oneness and support gained from working together. How can you build team spirit in this everyone-for-himself world and expand the concept to include school loyalty and pride? Begin with energetic promotion. If students and fans see gusto and a good attitude, they will be eager to show their team spirit, too.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

Build Team Spirit

1. Encourage universal cooperation (that is, leave no one out) among team members even in individual sports such as tennis or gymnastics. Break the team into pairs or small groups that help each other during practice. Assign each new player an experienced member of the team to be his mentor.

2. Get disagreements out in the open quickly and mediate if necessary. Disagreement is inevitable, but grudges affect team performance.

3. Demonstrate ways to build up the sport and the team around school. Don't just suggest, set goals such as mentioning the team to three people a day, covering all books in school colors and logos or inviting five friends to the next game.

4. Sponsor a very visible non-sports activity such as a blood drive, Toys for Tots, fundraising for new science equipment or whatever the team decides. Wear school colors, logo and name tags when promoting the project. You can create posters that mention the sport: "The Jefferson School championship volleyball team says, 'Give to live.' We support this year's Red Cross blood drive."

5. Plan a monthly "school spirit" day. Make an effort to find a job or activity for everyone as you encourage students and staff to dress in school colors, make signs ("Jefferson School rocks!"), display notebook stickers and so forth. If school rules permit, consider a face-painting booth.

6. Put on an assembly with banners, music, cheerleading, introductions and applause for team members. Teach everyone cheers, especially call-and-response and the school song. You'll want to display the statistics of various teams' accomplishments, whether it be a district trophy, a personal best or simply winning their last game.

Tips & Warnings

• The operative word here is "build." Initial efforts to engage young people in team spirit activities may not gain as much support as you would like, but keep at it. If you remain sincerely enthusiastic, eventually others will join in.
• Emphasize the positive in team spirit, but work on the negative, too. Set up consequences for gossip and put-downs.
• Ask the team members for their ideas about promoting school spirit.
• Do not "let off" school athletes from maintaining good grades and proper behavior. This does not unite the team or the school. It only sets a bad example.

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