I play on the Iolani varsity football team. Football has not only taught me life lessons such as responsibility and humility, I have learned how to become a true “one team” player. As a student of the game, I listened to whatever my coaches had to say. I often and sometimes too much, heard the coaches stress the one team philosophy. It was always “one team this”, “one team that”. Whenever a coach started to preach the One Team philosophy, I would think, "oh no, here we go again". I never thought much when this motto was said to me. I simply thought that this phrase was just a cliché used by teachers and coaches to motivate scholars and athletes. It was only in the start of my senior year that I truly learned what it means to be a part of the one team community.

During the summer practices before school started, I injured my shoulder. I went to the doctor to receive an MRI on that shoulder. Dr. Oishi, the team doctor, told me the bad news. He said that my shoulder had “peaked”, or was slightly dislocated. He said that I could either have surgery now to correct the dislocation, which would mean missing my entire senior season, or I could play with a harness that would attempt to keep my shoulder from dislocating even more. However, Dr. Oishi made it clear that the harness was not 100 percent reliable. My shoulder still had a chance to dislocate with the harness on. If my shoulder did fully dislocate, this would be an extremely painful experience. Dr. Oishi also went on to tell me that the harness would wrap around my chest, which would make breathing much harder. I weighed my options as I sat in the doctor’s office. I wanted to have complete confidence in my shoulder. Surgery would make this possible. Then I thought about my teammates and how much I would be letting them down. This year I was going to be a second-year starter on the defensive line. My teammates and my coaches were counting on me to be one of the better players this year. In the end I opted to play with the harness even if I was taking a big risk. Then suddenly it hit me. This was the one team spirit. All along I thought that my coaches and teachers had had no effect on me preaching to me about the one team philosophy.

That day I learned that even though we may not always be conscious to our actions that involve that one team philosophy, we subconsciously do what is right based on this concept. I truly learned to become part of the one team community here at Iolani. “One Team” means that everyone is willing to make individual sacrifices that come from the heart. These individual sacrifices will inevitably benefit the whole. Whether you are taking a big risk as I did or are simply pushing a teammate to do his or her best, this is all part of the One Team concept laid down by Father Bray.