Setting the foundation: identifying essential features of successful sports teams

Abstract

In America, during the 2018-2019 school year, over half of high school students participated in a school sanctioned sport. If sport is an educational opportunity, being involved in a successful sports team would benefit students’ education similarly to being involved in a successful classroom. In order to help guide the quest toward building a sport experience that is positive, and therefore advance adolescent education, this is an examination of common qualities that exist among successful teams from different resources including the experiences of successful groups told through media, as well as peer-reviewed books and articles. The main focus of the research will be essential features that are built into the teams purposefully - rather than patterns formed by chance - that can then be implemented by coaches on their own team. In the research, five important aspects to focus on came through repeatedly: purpose, leadership, accountability, autonomy, and diversity