I'll Scratch Your Back if You Scratch Mine.....

TEAM. El equipo. Mannshaft. In whatever language you say it in it still means the same thing. Team:(n.) A group of players forming one side in a competitive game or sport. Is that it though? Is that all a team is or did Webster have to save room for the more important words like win, victory, and champion? That must have been it. They must have felt the need to go green and save pages because to me there is so much more to say about "team"........or maybe they just don't know the extent of mine?
At Cal Strength we are a TEAM. We are the Bonnie and Clydes of weightlifting. The Ren and Stimpys of jackassory. When one member goes down the other 6 are there before he ever even hits the floor. We are a team of viruses. We feed off of one another like amebas on pond scum. Donny hits a PR and myself and the others all follow. This sport is a roller coaster of events on a daily basis and personally I enjoy the upside down part of the loop, the highest point possible, but not every day is like that. When one person gets down on themself then it's up to everyone else to bring back up the good atmosphere.

A good team is well rounded though. It consists of a little bit of everything. We at Cal Strength are the walking example of that. I am the one who yells and cheers, "Come on, you got this!" as I see my teammates look heasitantly at the loads on their bar and worry about who's going to come out victorious in the end, them or that piece of steel. Maybe it's the little bit of CrossFit still left in my veins, or maybe its the coffee mixed with our Euro House techo music? Jon yells back, "We don't get HURT!" Immediately this washes out the fear in the room and we know that even if we don't win against that bar we will at least get back up to fight it again. I think we sometimes need to hear this more often.....maybe someday we will run Fear off and he will go visit and make home at the Eleiko Center down the street. Kevin is our happy place. He joins in by telling us stories of mermaids and relieves our doubts that even though our dark, chalky little corner feels like Hell, that it is indeed a Heaven of Hells right here on Earth. Whatever that means, it works. Without even realizing it in the time it took us to try to figure out what in the hell goes on in his head we've already lifted the bar and like a robot already added more weight all the while laughing. Rob.....he's the shit talker of the group. Even more so, he's the one who snatches 130s while still eating his lunch. He'll have a BBQ rib hanging out of his mouth, walk up, snatch, and walk away while still eating. Spencer walks around cheering quotes from remember the Titans.....I'm not sure exactly how strong I am, but Spencer sure tells me I'm too strong??? That means this should be easy right? Tom, our newest member is an awesome addition. He's just going through the first "hurt" stage of the game so we all jump on his back when 2:00 rolls around and we all still want to milk the last remaining minutes back in the breakroom working on our blogs. Casually we walk to our corner of the gym to dreadenly lace up our shoes .....guess what, Tom already has his bar loaded and is already trying like hell....this sets our tempo! If Tom is excited to be there then we should be too.....he's our teammate and we dare not let any teammate down. Donny. Well Donny should have his own paragraph....hold on....

Ok, that's better. Donny... Donny, is quote unquote our team captain. Shit, Donny is Captain America, and if there was such thing as a Captain World, he'd be that too! He doesn't even have to talk to be heard. When I'm frustrated at a weight, HE knows.... looks at me..... and then I know. I'm not sure if it's magic or if it's fear supplied through telepathic brain waves that I can't let him down, but whatever it is, it works. It's a strong look! The Shankle look tops off this crazy circle of team dependency. He is the leader of this circus clan. The papa ape of all us little monkeys, but you better believe that when Donny needs a pick up we are all there for him too! I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine....that's the kind of the moto we live by.

So Webster, what I guess I'm trying to say is that if I had to go back and do it all again......I would save you even more paper.....

Team: (n) see term: Cal Strength