Abigail Harris

Group Communication; MWF 1PM

May 1, 2013

When we were first given this assignment I had no clue what group to write about, but then I

decided on my brother’s baseball team. My brother Nate is a sophomore at Boardman High School and

plays for their JV baseball team. The season had just started so I had plenty of time to observe the way

the team works as a group. The team has a 1-12 record and could sure use some insight to what they

need to fix so their group as whole works better and maybe start winning some games.

When defining a group there are many different things to look at. Groups are three or more

people, whether they have the same common goal or not. When studying groups you need to look at

their goals, how they engage with each other, the different roles, and how they ultimately

communicate. Groups are made up of task and socioemotional dimensions. Groups first engage in task,

which is that they have an important purpose and that is why the group was formed. The

socioemotional aspect of groups is whether there is encouragement of goals or if their goals are going to

be impeded.

I had gone and talked to the coaches and told them what I was planning on doing for my paper

and I hoped they would allow me to study the team, luckily they said yes. I started going to some

practices and also watched the team during their games. When I first started studying the team I didn’t

think it was going to be possible to be an outsider and try to understand the way they work. This team

has connections to each other that I don’t think any doctor could understand. It’s like one big bro-

mance. They all get each other and they are all there to support one another. The team consists of 14

players, with different strengths and different weaknesses but they all somehow click.

During practices there wasn’t much to judge based on how they worked in a group, they were

all doing so many different things at once. At first they all stretch as a team, but as they are doing that

they gossip. They all love to talk. They will talk about anything and everything.

While the team was on the defensive side trying to keep the other team from scoring, there

wasn’t a second that went by there weren’t positive words coming out of every players mouth. Nick

Hura is a junior in high school and I would say the group leader. He presents himself in a way that

everyone can’t help but love. He is the catcher for the team, and he is always calling out plays and telling

the other boys what to do. More importantly than calling out the plays, he calls out positivity. He is

always calling “time” to go and talk to his pitcher and make sure he’s okay and to let him know that he’s

doing a good job. He says “let’s go boys”, “we got this”, and anyth ing else that will keep his team in a

positive mind set. He really is a role model. The team may keep the positive comments coming, but

those words aren’t going to get them to win the game. They all really do try their best during the game

and try to stay on their toes. They will dive after plays and call “mine” for foul and fly balls. But

sometimes that isn’t enough for them. The chemistry they have off the field, they sometimes don’t have

on it. When they are all on the field, it’s like they are playing for themselves and they don’t care what

anyone else on the team is doing. They will sometimes try to show off and they will end up over

throwing are making a bad play. They all need to realize that it’s not just about what you are doing on

the field it’s about what your team is doing.

Batting is a whole other story. These boys work so hard at what they do, because they each have

this passion in their hearts that pushes them to be the best they can be. They each want to just hit the

ball like there is no care in the world and when they don’t, they get angry and they stay angry for the

rest of the game and it ends up costing them. No matter what positive remarks the other players tell

them, if the boys get mad, then they are mad, there is no changing it. The boys on this team try to wait

for the right pitch and they won’t swing if it’s not the right one.

The major influence, that keeps these boys going, is the coaches. They may kick some fences and throw

a few swear words out there, but they love the boys like they are family. I may not have been at every

practice they had, but I saw enough to know what kind of influence the coaches have. At practices the

kids are mostly on their own and the coaches help when they are needed. I believe as coaches you

should be there to coach the boys and not depend on the upper classmen to know what’s going on.

From observing, I don’t think this has made the team stronger and is only hurting them. During the

games the coaches sometimes get in the same mind set as the boys; when their mad, their mad, and no

matter what good thing happens on the field, it just doesn’t seem good enough sometimes. After every

inning though, all the boys come out of the dugout and the coaches talk to them as a whole and it

makes them feel like a team. These coaches care about their boys and they only want what’s best for

them. They are always friendly with the boys and will socialize at any chance they get. These coaches

keep the heads of their players held high, even with a losing streak. I give so much credit to the coaches

and the job they are doing, they may get mad but at the end of the day they kee p this team working as a

group and they really are at the center of it all. The coaches need to love the game they are coaching, if

they want their players to love the game they are playing, and these coaches, if not shown all the time,

really do love this game.

I cannot explain the chemistry between this team, it almost seems like magic. I may have been

an outsider trying to understand the close bond that this group of boys has, but they let me into their

world. They showed me that even if they have a losing streak they will always, as a team, keep their

heads held high. They showed me that there is so much more to working as a group, things that I didn’t

even think about. They allowed me to understand what it takes to make and keep them a team, and

what it takes to keep them playing the game they love.