Bond between players is priceless

There’s a bond, which is especially significant at the prep level, between those who don the same uniform. Football, tennis, water polo, baseball, it doesn’t matter. Cross country, I think, is one of the best examples where teammates and team unity is profoundly evident.

Running a 3.1-mile race is as individual as it gets. But I’m sure hearing teammates cheer you on down the final stretch, encouraging you to find that extra push, does wonders for that individual effort. It’s neat to witness as well. Finishing first or last matters on the surface. Crossing the finish line means more down the road.

What you accomplish as an individual does not compare to what can be done with a strong supporting group. Where would we be without teammates? Alone.

Prior to their game against Monterey on Sept. 30, players on the Christopher High football team learned that fellow footballer Fernando Burton had been diagnosed with Hochkins lymphoma – a form of blood cancer.

With the official start of Breast Cancer Awareness Month (October) on the horizon, members of the Cougars’ football team decided to break out the pink gloves, sweat towels and cleat laces one day early as an outward display of support for Burton.

“He’s one of our best friends,” linebacker Mikey Pirnik said after the Cougars’ victory over the Toreadors two weeks ago. “He’s a good dude to be around, everyone’s friend. We just figured we’d all play for him and help him out.”

Running back Nic Slater said it was a shock to find out about Burton’s sickness.

“You don’t expect that, especially a teammate,” Slater said.

Burton, a senior and the eldest of six children, said he has four months of upcoming chemotherapy scheduled after doctors removed a tumor in his chest. The cancer has spread to his neck and arm, but Burton said doctors feel a recovery is probable. Burton hits the field when he can. He was at last Saturday’s game against Pajaro Valley and at practice Wednesday, hanging out with the rest of his team.

“It feels good to be out there and be a part of it,” Burton said. “I didn’t want them to feel sorry for me at first. But they have all been great. It feels good to have all that support.”

The sincerity expressed by his teammates is real, it’s heartfelt and it’s great to see that expressed among teenagers.

One of the best sports films of all time is “Rudy,” a football flick based on Dan “Rudy” Ruettiger’s quest to suit up and play for the Notre Dame football team in the mid 1970s. 

If you’re a sports-movie junkie, or love Notre Dame, or both, you’ve seen it upwards of 25 times and you know how the story goes. But just in case: Ruettiger is an undersized walk-on, who is relegated to the practice squad for two years before having his chance to run out of the tunnel for the final game of his senior season.

The movie, though more of an underdog story, suggests that teammates rallied behind Ruettiger, offering up their places on the game-day roster so that the hard-working defensive lineman can live out his dream.

The symbolism throughout the movie is priceless, and characterizes, in a two-hour nutshell, the essence of sport and competition. 

Teammates complete the sport experience, not the wins and losses, the statistics, the “popularity.” Where else can you have that many inside jokes, motivational mantras and shouts of success? Nowhere. Students identify themselves with the teams for which they play. The rallying of teammates around one another are moments that define seasons and instances that shape behaviors and lives beyond fences of campus life.