Playing Against the People You Used to Play With

Today you’re going to compete against people you used to compete with.

That’s a specific emotional situation. You know them. You know their tendencies. They know yours. There’s history there — positive and maybe some that isn’t. And the emotional landscape of competing against them is different from competing against a stranger.

Let’s name what’s in the room before the game starts.

Read this passage slowly.

Let that sit for a second before you move.

As far as it depends on you. The relational complexity of facing a former team doesn’t depend entirely on you. It depends on what happened in the transition, on how things ended, on what both sides are carrying into this game. But your part — what depends on you — is entirely within your control.

The athlete who left a program — or was released from one, or transferred from one, or graduated from one — has a relationship with that history that is unique to them. And what they do with that relationship in this game says something about their character.

The character test is this: can you compete against former teammates with full competitive intensity while remaining free of the need to prove something beyond the game? Can you compete to win rather than to settle a score? Can you handle a loss to them without letting it become a personal verdict? Can you handle a win without making it a statement about why you were right to leave or they were wrong to let you go?

Compete fully. Compete cleanly. Let the game be about the game. The relationship with your former team is a separate conversation for a different setting. Today, it’s just a competition. Play it that way.

Honest emotional inventory before competition. Create genuine space for the honest answer.