Entitlement based thinking is based upon an individual, or in this case two individuals, who believe that they have free reign and therefore, do not care about their commitment or teammates.
Everyone involved in team sports should read "Boys in the Boat" by Daniel James Brown.
The book is about a group of students and rowers from the University of Washingon and how they won the eight oar gold medal in the 1936 Olympics. It is real inspirational.
The boys won the the championship due to a lot of work, skill and training. But, "winning it all" was due mostly to their commitment to each other. They weren't going to win without the training and the skill, but "winning it all" required more than practice, fitness and competitiveness. It took real concern for their teammates.
In the situation with the softball team, the state championship didn't matter for these two girls. So what? They made a commitment to the team, and they broke that commitment.
The championship did matter to their teammates....who they ignored. How about all those times when they put their hands together and do a cheer? As captains, they probably made the, "Come on, girls. Let's pull together and we can win this" speech many times. Was it all BS? Was it all lies? Is the whole "do something for other people" crap?
There was a kid (Bria Ebels) on my DD#3's hoops team (the team that won the NCAA D3 championship). Bria was by far the best player on the team. She never demanded more playing time. She often played only 15 to 20 minutes a game. No one on the team complained about PT. If the best player on the team doesn't complain about PT then no other kid could complain about PT.
Because she didn't put up eye-popping numbers, she was never a contended for All-American. Not even close.
But because of her, the team was 2 players deep at all the positions.
The team was ranked #5 in the country. Due to the way D3 does seeding, the team had to beat, consecutively the #4, #3, #2, and #1 top seeded teams. The team needed every player to keep from running out of gas. Bria actually sacrificed something to make the team better. (Bria was named the tournament MVP.)
I talked to Bria about it years at the team's 10 year reunion. She said that it never even crossed her mind to ask for more PT. She said something like, "We were a team."
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