Team-first mentality equals win

FAIRFIELD - For a team to have real success, it has to operate as one. For an individual to have real success, he has to be part of a cohesive team.

Legendary Chicago Bulls and Los Angeles Lakers coach Phil Jackson had two of the greatest individual players in Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant, but they weren't champions until they became part of a team. 'The strength of the team is each individual member. The strength of each member is the team,” Jackson said in the quote of truth for sports.

The Fairfield High School football team has made a commitment to being better teammates and it paid off Friday with a season-opening win over Knoxville 15-7.

'If you don't do it together, you will never get to where you want to go,” Fairfield head coach Nate Weaton said. 'I tell them that all the time.”

It is easy to say one will be there when a teammate needs him. It is much harder to follow through on that saying when it is the final quarter of a hot sweaty night of hard-hitting football.

'I think it's a goal to get everybody working together and have some fun out there,” senior Landen Schafer said. 'Last year, we would get down on ourselves, start bickering and it just brought the whole team down.”

Teammates are the ones who lift another up, cover for each other, have one another's backs no matter what. After Friday's win, Weaton said, 'Honestly, this was a total team win. These guys came together, they all did their job, and they won this football game together.”

Together includes new assistant coach Jeff Jones, who has helped the Trojans excel when tired.

'We were really well prepared, both coaches and players, which allowed us to play fast and physical,” Weaton said after Friday's game. 'We were also well conditioned. Everyone played four quarters of football at their highest level of output without any cramping or exhaustion.”

Jones works to fine tune the body to sustain and push for production. Senior Brad Smithburg appreciates that.

'He will help us be more prepared mentally and that will make us more confident in what we can do,” Smithburg said.

Fairfield had confidence right away Friday, scoring on its opening drive. Confidence is a mental edge, very important to success in a physical sport.

'Success to me would be giving it my all,” senior Kyle Godwin said. 'That and having a good attitude.”

Weaton has called Jones his attitude coach, something the Trojans were missing.

'This year my goal is to be a leader for my teammates and be somebody the younger kids can look up to,” Schafer said.

Modeling good behavior and hard work is how a leader makes his team better. If a leader takes it easy, it allows others to do it more. Nobody worked harder at their sport than the stars Jackson coached with the Lakers and the Bulls.

'My favorite thing is working with my teammates and seeing how hard everybody works every single day so we can put it together on Friday night in front of friends and family in the crowd,” Smithburg said. 'That's always fun.”

When teammates are there for one another, a bond forms. Those bonds are what can bind a team as it achieves more together than by itself.

Weaton said Friday's win, 'validates how hard these kids have worked this offseason to get here. We'll be working hard over the weekend to critique our weaknesses, and then put a plan in place to get better in those areas. It's part of the process, and a part that our guys really embrace.”