Show Them

Everyone belongs to a team. Sometimes people do not think of it that way, but it is true. Your family, your romantic partner, your friends, your colleagues at work, all of it assembles a team, essentially. It is not only about you winning. You want the other people on your team to win as well.

I have belonged to teams my whole life. I have been an anchor leg on a 4×4 relay track team since I was seven years old. The teammates switched out and changed, but the goal was always the same: for all of us to cross the finish line first.

When I was tiny, I belonged to a relay team that collected blue first place ribbons. We were all little girls with the same haircut, skinny legs, and energetic spirits, clueless to what it all really meant, but having so much fun every day at practice and every Saturday competing. Winning did not matter, but the adults seemed to be incredibly impressed by us.

My freshman year of high school, I was put on the varsity 4×4 relay team. My teammates were all juniors and seniors. There was Miriam, who had a grandma name but who all the guys thought was hot, with long maroon-colored hair, a nose ring, and pretty green eyes. Miriam also played on the football team. The only girl, and I admired the way nothing intimidated her. Not those football guys, not outside peoples judgments, not coaches and other teams scoffing at her and underestimating her when game day came. She took every doubt and disadvantage and pulverized them into a defiant cocktail that everyone who ever undermined her was forced to swallow. I was in awe of Miriam.

There was Hanna, who was rosy-cheeked and from Sweden. The ultimate nerd. Short and loud, with long, thick blonde hair she always wore in a low ponytail, she had a dark sense of humor and slept underneath a huge authentic samurai sword that was mounted above the bed in her room. She was fearless, acutely aware of herself for a teenager, and unapologetically so. Kids made fun of her. They found her strange and off-putting. They did not understand her. I loved her. I admired her. I absolutely adored Hanna.

There was Stecy, who was the only Black girl in our entire white suburban bubble of a school. Stecy was beautiful. She was hilarious. She was talented. She was tender-hearted behind the walls she put up to protect herself. Highly self-aware, but unlike Hanna, who rejected anyone who did not get her, Stecy shape-shifted. She used self-deprecation and humor to attract people. She acted as a character, entertaining others, and she became beloved by everyone at her own personal cost.

Stecy was voted prom queen. Stecy and I were close. We remained close for years and years after high school. She was seated in the pews at church next to my family when I was confirmed. She visited me in college. She gave me a weave when I chopped all my hair off and then regretted it immediately. She was a special person whom I will always be thankful I got to know from the inside, not outside the walls.

And then there was me, the freshman. Wide-eyed, curious, and helplessly naive.

We could not have been more different from one another, and if it were not for being on the same team, I never would have known these girls.

But because we were on a team, we became family. The best kind of family. The kind that recognizes your strengths and believes they surmount any of your weaknesses. The kind that notices when you are having an off day and lifts you up. We endured the highs and lows of winning and losing together. When we won, we celebrated one another. We knew we would not have won alone. When we lost, we picked each other up in faith and tried again at the next race.

It is special to be part of a team.

And people love their teams. People identify with a team, and collectively it builds an even bigger team. The players are the representation of it all, uniting people in the safest form of solidarity, one that drops all pretenses and can bond the most diverse group. In Los Angeles, you can go to a Dodger game solo and walk out with an entire new network of close friends. You are suddenly not seated next to a stranger. You are next to a fellow Dodger fan.

Because of that, you bond in a way that is different. In the stadium, you feel the effects of community: a sense of belonging, trust, emotional safety, and resilience. You suddenly are among a group that is not just supportive, it is stabilizing. When the Dodgers win, it is as if all of us have won too.

People want to win. But more than anything, people want to belong.

There was a race where Miriam got injured at the 200-meter mark. Something snapped in her knee. You saw it. It caused everyone watching to cringe in pain with her. It was a night meet, and the stadium lights were blaring.

Hanna, the second leg, positioned on the track, looked at Stecy and me lined up with our competitors underneath a blue tent on the sideline next to the clock, the numbers ticking away, and we were all ready to rush toward her and end the whole thing. It did not matter.

But Miriam did not quit.

We watched her stumble, briefly pausing, the other teams sweeping past her and leaving her alone under the spotlights, limping with the baton in her hand, grimacing in pain, signaling to us that this was not over.

The crowd erupted in respect for her. The stadium shook.

Every team had taken off and was nearly 300 meters ahead by the time Hanna took the baton from a Miriam who was about to collapse. Once the baton was in Hannas hand, she ran. She ran so fucking fast. I will never forget watching her, the gap between us and everyone else slowly closing.

Miriam, at the medic tent, yelling over everyone throwing bags of ice on her and trying to wrap her leg, her voice steady and piercing:

Show them, Hanna!

And Hanna showed them.

And when it was my turn, I did the same. And when it was Stecys turn to bring us all home, we had caught up and even finished third.

That third place felt like a gold medal at the Olympics.

Our coaches were elated, holding their clipboards and stopwatches, yelling out our splits triumphantly. We had all set personal records that day.

Because of Miriam.

Not because of our training, or unique talent, or some delirious, insatiable desire to be the best. No. All of our egos checked out completely the second Miriam stumbled in agony. And when she did not give up, we ascended with her.

Her strength, her determination, her unyielding spirit triggered ours.

And we showed up for her the way she showed up for us.

That is the truth.

People belong to teams. People are watching, cheering, rallying, because there is something more in all of us, something mysterious and indomitable waiting for all of us to tap into.

Waiting for us to win, together.

Show them.