Bam! Study Up on Your Chemistry For a Championship Run

I just didn't get chemistry in high school—equations, beakers, tables, etc.

Besides the hindsight of knowing that I should have paid closer attention in the lab, I never really had that passion to find out what chemistry was all about.

I never imagined that I would hear or use the term chemistry to describe a winning team in sports.

I think it is interesting that the term chemistry is used, and at times overused, to help define why a sports team is successful during a particular sports season.

Watching the failures of many GMs and coaches with amazing athletic talent on their teams, it is clear to me that I am not alone in struggling with this idea of team chemistry. There are many examples of makeshift talent on teams that mysteriously "came together" and went on a run to a championship.

The Yankees with their bottomless money pot are seemingly an exception to this rule at first glance. However, I would argue that just having the talent does not equate to being a champion. Look at the mid and late '80s, when the NY Yankees were not hampered by a lack of talent and still had poor seasons. Big names and big money do not equate to consistent winning.

Is there a magic bullet? Danny Snyder seems to think so. There are literally hundreds of former professional athletes who add their expertise to sports talk shows and fill up thousands of hours of opinions of what it takes to win consistently. I would bet that in each of these conversations there is one consistent word discussed, and that word is chemistry.

The irony here is that chemistry is mysterious to many of us who survived our only formal exposure to the cool-colored water and volcano experiments of our youth.

If chemistry is the common denominator to championship teams, then why is there not a formula to building a winning team? Well, maybe there is, and the people who have the secret to chemistry just have not written it down.

Chemistry is not something that can be bought or marketed.  It is simply  having the right people making personnel decisions who take the time to look at how personalities will work together through difficult times and through the good times.   If there is a formula, what is it and what are the "chemical factors" in building a successful franchise or team?  Talk radio shows spend hours fielding calls and interviewing experts to analyze the success of a team which seem to have turned it on at the right time. Time after time there seems to be no other answer but the chemical makeup of the people and personalities in the locker room.