Team Chemistry In Sports: How Finding The Right Mix Can Make You a Winner

This a college paper I wrote for a Writing for Social Science class. It pertains to team chemistry and its importance in sports.

Team Chemistry

Karl Roman
Writing for the Social Sciences
03/25/08

Table of Contents

Introduction

Building a Winning Professional sports franchise

What can ruin a potential winner?

2007-2008 Super Bowl Champion New York Giants: A study in the importance of team chemistry

Conclusion

Bibliography

Team Chemistry
Karl Roman Writing for Social Sciences
03/25/08

      I believe that team chemistry is the single most vital thing that must be present to build a winning professional sports franchise. Over the years, team executives, owners, and managers, those who strive to build winning professional sports franchises, have found that talent will only take you so far, and while there is no guarantee that you’ll win if you have good team chemistry, it is virtually guaranteed that you won’t go all the way without it.
       As anyone with success and experience in the industry will tell you, it takes several elements working together to build a championship franchise. You have to have luck, talent, and great team chemistry. Even then there are no guarantees, but without any one of these things, you’re very unlikely to succeed at the highest level. In my opinion, the most vital of these elements is team chemistry, because it has proven that it can dictate success or failure, and is powerful enough to swing the pendulum from one to the other for a team, despite or because of other elements. If recent sports happenings have taught us anything, they have taught us this. From the 2004 Boston Red Sox overcoming a 3-0 series deficit to defeat the Yankees and subsequently capture their first World Series title 1918, Chicago White Sox improbable run to a World Series title in 2005, to 11th seeded George Mason making a run to the Final Four of the 2005-06 NCAA tournament, along the way upsetting more talented squads like UNC and UConn, to the 2005-06 Pittsburgh Steelers improbable run from the 6th seed in the AFC to a Super Bowl title, to, most recently the New York Giants, who won three straight playoff games and the Super Bowl on the road, upsetting the previously undefeated Patriots to win the 2007-08 Super Bowl title, this is a trend we see repeated over and over in professional sports. After all, this is why we watch sports. We want to see David beat Goliath. It is team chemistry, along with the other elements, that make this possible. It is therefore chemistry that teams try to build up when they’re trying to build a winner. However, chemistry is a very hard thing to build. You can try to draft and trade for good character guys and hope for the best, but it is impossible to know if you’ve got the right mix of guys, from the owner to the manager to the coaches to the players to the trainers. It is also a very delicate thing, and one that is hard to keep once you’ve got it. Witness the 2007 White Sox, who flamed out to a 72-90 finish, and whose clubhouse was torn to shreds by infighting and hostility, with the same manager and executives and almost the identical team that won a World Series just two years earlier. One thing that has been discovered is that chemistry is not something that can be bought and sold. It is this struggle to find the right balance that consumes so many hours and sleepless nights. An absence of chemistry is so often what keeps good teams from taking that next step to becoming great teams and cementing their legacy in history as winners and not just teams that came close. When talking about chemistry, John Branch of the New York Times writes, “A lack of it is blamed for failure. A wealth of it is credited for success. Chemistry has gone from high school subject to cultural cliché. Good teams have chemistry. Bad teams do not. Behind every underdog’s upset is great chemistry. Behind every underachieving powerhouse is poor chemistry. At the same time, No one has ever said, “We finished last, but we had great chemistry.” Clearly, we can see, now that when talent, luck, and great team chemistry are combined at the same time, a team has the opportunity to do great things.
    As hard as it is to attempt to build team chemistry, it is very easy to destroy it. Witness the case of the Philadelphia Eagles, a historically strong and united team, who had enjoyed success with quarterback and team leader Donovan McNabb, but had yet to get over the hump and make it to the Super Bowl. “Many recent discussions of chemistry have focused on Philadelphia and the locker room of the Eagles. The Eagles went to the N.F.C. championship game and lost three years in a row. Then, in 2004, they signed Terrell Owens, the famously disruptive receiver. The Eagles reached the Super Bowl, but Owens soon went on a textbook team-wrecking binge. He wanted a new contract. He insulted quarterback Donovan McNabb. He stopped speaking to coaches. The Eagles suspended him after seven games last season. They were 4-3 at the time. Injuries and a locker room divided by Owens’s antics were blamed for a 6-10 season.” It is not surprise that no team with Terrell Owens has ever won a Super Bowl, despite the fact that he is one of the best receivers in the history of the NFL. This can be traced to the fact that he is not a leader, and in times of crisis and pressure, he is reduced to emotional instability, hostility, infighting, and blaming others, and his production on the field often suffers. For further evidence of this, we need only to look at his performance in the Dallas Cowboys NFC Divisional Round playoff loss to the eventual Super Bowl champion Giants this past season. His production disappeared in the 4th quarter, and he could be seen crying and deflecting blame from himself in a post-game press conference. A similar situation is in Cincinnati, where Bengals head coach Marvin Lewis continues his often futile struggle to keep flamboyant star receiver Chad Johnson grounded and team oriented: “Chad Johnson of the Cincinnati Bengals has a new checklist in his locker, thanks to his coach, Marvin Lewis. One of football's best trash-talkers and best receivers, Johnson enjoyed posting the names of opposing cornerbacks in his locker, and rating their performances. But this week, Lewis took Johnson's list down, and replaced it with another checklist. Lewis's list asks Johnson six questions, including: Did he study extra tape? Did he run after the catch? Did he finish in blocking?” Not surprisingly, while Chad Johnson has continued to put up huge numbers and arise locker room tensions, the Cincinnati Bengals have not won a playoff game since this happened way back in 2005.
    Never has the importance of team chemistry been more evident than in the case of the 2007-2008, Super Bowl champion New York Giants. For several years, the Giants had been a team with Super Bowl talent. However, they always seemed to start off strong, four years of 6-2 starts to the season, and limp down the stretch and into the postseason, where they suffered two consecutive embarrassing first round defeats. In the long 2006-07 NFL off-season, coach Tom Coughlin and new General Manager Jerry Reese pondered how to get their talented team over the hump. One problem that the Giants had was that the team felt that Coughlin was too harsh and no fun to play for. Coughlin, a man who had been in football for a very long time and was very set in his ways, was resistant in the past to changing. This off-season, however, he planned a players council so that they too would have a voice on the team and would not feel isolated, and promised to lighten up, treat players with more respect and compassion, and try to have more fun. Reese set out to draft players that he felt would be not only good football players, but also great team guys. After speaking to college coaches and observing at the combine, he settled on Kevin Boss, a tight end from Western Oregon, Aaron Ross, a cornerback from Texas, and Ahmad Bradshaw, a running back and kick returner from Marshall. To most experts, this seemed to be a rather pedestrian draft. Little did anyone know the role these three would later play in the team’s success.  Another problem that the Giants had was that they had too many big egos on the team, and that lead to infighting and hostility. A big cause of this was running back Tiki Barber, who despite his outstanding talent and ability frequently criticized the coaching staff and quarterback Eli Manning. Fortunately, he’d no longer be an issue as he retired from football, a move he announced during the previous season, throwing the Giants into one of the characteristic late season tailspins. Manning was being asked to be the vocal leader that by nature he was not, and was being ordered around frequently by Barber and TE Jeremey Shcokey. All of this left veteran DE and undisputed team leader Michael Strahan frustrated, as he chased that elusive Super Bowl ring as is biological football clock continued to tick. The season started off disastrously, as Strahan held out until the last few days of training camp, then the team was blown out, in losing their first two games. Still, Coughlin preached the same message ““What we would really like to do, and I’ve talked to our team about it, is do our playing on the field and let our play do the talking, Not spend so much time trying to explain who we are, where we are. Let’s just play the game. Talk is cheap.” The Giants then reeled off six wins in a row, and then lost to the rival Cowboys. Many people started saying “Here we go again with the Giants.” Coughlin told his players otherwise. He kept them fighting. Although Manning continued to struggle, the defense and unheralded rookies like the one’s Reese drafted stepped up, and the team was able to clinch a playoff birth in the second to last game of the season. In the regular season finale, Manning started to show signs of becoming a leader, and although the team dropped the game to the undefeated New England Patriots, there team chemistry was never stronger. They now believed in each other. They preceded to pull off three straight road playoff upsets, the last one in Green Bay, Wisconsin in -30 degree weather. They had disproved the myths abut their lack of toughness, as Eli Manning became the leader everyone was waiting for him to be, the defense lead by Strahan stepped up, and rookie Kevin Boss filled in admirably for team leader and TE Jeremey Shockey, who was out with a broken leg. Ross and Bradshaw played like experienced veterans, and the team stood by each other through hard times. The coach also always stood by his team. Still, one challenge lay ahead. A Super Bowl rematch with the undefeated Patriots, a team they’d almost beaten several weeks ago. They were again double-digit underdogs, but amazingly, they pulled the upset in the ultimate David vs. Goliath match-up. Manning stepped up and proved to have ice-water in his veins when he won the game with a late fourth quarter drive, and Strahan and the defense held the most productive offense in the history of the NFL to just 14 points. The New York giants embodied the spirit of New York in the way they bonded together to overcome adversity. They have cemented their legacy forever in history. This is the ultimate example of how team chemistry can be the missing link between mediocrity and greatness. It shows how team chemistry can overcome having less talent, and make the impossible come true.
       I believe that team chemistry is the single most vital thing that must be present to build a winning professional sports franchise. Team chemistry is what all teams yearn to have. When it is achieved, the seeds of greatness and dynasty have been planted.

Bibliography

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