Creating a team spirit here is totally different compared to Europe. The first thing you need to understand is that no player comes here to stay. Junior College is not far from the bottom of the leagues. Players who are here come mostly for the following reason : either they didn’t qualify, meaning they didn’t have the grades that would allow them to get into a big time college, they misbehaved and gave a reason for their previous school to kick them out of the football program or they didn’t got recruited and are trying to get media attention by performing in a low level league. The point is, most of them want to come and play and then move on to the next level. They come from all part of the states, some are local kids (MN, MT, SD, WI), some are kids coming all the way from the southern football states (FL, AL, CA, TX, MS, etc). In this atmosphere where very few people know each other and are competing for a starting spot (about 3 to 4 players per spot), it is hard to create a team atmosphere. Add on that, that most of those kids come from difficult situation to say the least, and you have ticking bomb on your hands. With that situation, team rules and code of conduct are enforced with punition, and the ultimate sanction : being cut from the football team. New problems occurs every day, from kids missing curfew, use of indelicate language (the N word), and any kind of misbehave in practice. Little by little, the weaker elements, as well as the most troublesome either fall in line or quit, or get cut. It’s about discipline, it’s about what’s best for the team above what’s best for each individual player. It is a painful process, but it ultimately achieve its purpose : create a brotherhood, a bond that will lead several dozens of individual to battle. Something that will drive them during 4 quarter, all season long, towards our goal :
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