One month into summer, football workouts are in full swing, but workouts aren’t the only thing football players are doing with their teammates. Last Tuesday afternoon, the Stanhope Elmore football captains organized a team bonding event — a team-wide NCAA 25 tournament — inspired by a similar event held by another school this summer.
The idea originated in a friendly debate between teammates and friends, as ideas do.
“We were arguing Friday,” senior captain Joidaden Stone said. “About who plays the game the most. So the argument just happened to go to NCAA, and like ‘I’m better than you at NCAA,’ so we set up the tournament.”
Once the argument morphed into a great idea, Stone and fellow senior captain Macin James pitched the idea to coach Hunter Adams.
“I said, ‘Great, I’ll help you get the word out,’” Adams said. “(NCAA 25 football) is something that all the kids in this generation love and enjoy.”
The event could not have been done without the help of James’s parents, Schandra and Myron, who own S&M Essential Party Rentals in Millbrook. With their help, Stone and James hosted the team bonding event for their teammates for free.
While competing with each other in NCAA 25 was the vehicle, the ultimate goal of the event was team bonding. Trust among teammates in any sport, but especially football is crucial to success and can be the difference-maker between good teams and great ones.
“On the field, it’s about having trust and being able to rely on each other,” Stone said. “Because it’s 11 people, but everyone has to win their set matchup every single play to win the game. As soon as we can depend on each other and have faith in each other, we can win.”
Coach Adams echoed these sentiments and the importance of creating trust off the field in order to bolster it on the field, because it comes in handy in critical moments.
“It’s huge because when you like each other, you’re going to play harder for each other,” Adams said. “When you trust each other as friends and brothers, you’re going to trust each other more in those times of struggle, in those critical moments. You’re going to lay it on the line for your teammates a little more when there’s that level of love and compassion for each other.”
The Mustangs are squeezing every drop out of the time they have together this summer before the season starts in order to prepare to accomplish every goal they have set for themselves.
