University of North Carolina Athletics
Softball Blog: Team Bonding Trip, Part 2
October 23, 2012 | Softball
The North Carolina softball team recently took a team bonding trip to Wrightsville Beach, N.C. Below is part two of senior Paige Williams' blog of the Tar Heels' weekend of bonding. Read the first entry here.
Team Bonding, Part II:
by senior Paige Williams
After the web activity we all went back to the house to enjoy two hours of free time. A lot of the girls watched the UNC v Idaho football game on television, some went to the beach and others used the time to catch up on school work or prepare for exams. Our spaghetti dinner that night was prepared by the Heels.
We had a lot of fun sitting in the dining room together laughing about our past activities. Following dinner, we got to compete in a TPS team competition! Coach Tadlock organized two different TPS competitions during practice this past week and of course the Rams dominated the competition taking both "W's."
This time, each team had to put four different puzzles together and the team that finished the fastest won. It may shock a few of you to learn that the Rams didn't finish first but what fun would it be without a little competition? Congratulations, Bats.
We then enjoyed some ice cream and freshly baked cookies! On Friday, Cricket met with the team to hand out the results from our DiSC behavioral assessment. It is a program that measures what kind of behavior each person has a tendency to exhibit the most. The "D" is for dominant, the "I" is for influential, The "S" is for stability and the "C" is for conscientiousness.
The assessment helps each person learn about her own actions and how she interacts with others; it is a way for us to better understand each other in order to effectively communicate. Thus, we drew our letter on a piece of paper and wrote three things our teammates can expect from us, three things we need from our teammates and three areas in which we want to improve. We then presented these pictures to everyone and they will hang above our lockers in the team room for future reference.
Sunday morning arrived a little earlier than most for the Rams as we were assigned to prepare breakfast for everyone by 8:30 a.m. After the meal, we gathered in the living room for our final activity of the weekend. Jeff went over the benefits of The Energy Bus and explained why it is such an important tool for our team's success. Each pair of girls briefly explained their assigned rule in the book. Jeff then handed us a sheet of paper containing the six standards of behavior one could exhibit in a particular situation. The behaviors are "nonnegotiable," "unacceptable," "borderline," "acceptable," "commendable," and "exemplary."
Each TPS team and our group of coaches were instructed to present a skit containing responses that correspond to the six behaviors. The Swoosh-Lori, Elisha, Chelsea, Tisha, Kati, Stephanie and Kristin-were given the task of formulating six different responses to instruction. Kristin and Lori pretended to pitch to mock catchers Kati and Chelsea while Elisha and Stephanie pretended to be pitching coaches critiquing Lori. The skit was hilarious especially when Lori responded in a "nonnegotiable" way to Elisha shoving her backwards and calling her a moron.
The other TPS teams were funny to watch as well but the Oscar-winning performance definitely went to Coach P when she portrayed an "exemplary" way to talk with the team after our loss to Georgia in regionals last year. Her performance actually took me back to that heart-wrenching moment sitting in right field at the conclusion of our 2012 season.
It was quite an exhausting weekend but I know everyone feels even closer than before. I can already say that this is the most united team we have had over the past four years and I'm excited to see our progress moving forward.
