Team Competition at CBS

All on property are assembled. The sound of drums beating grows steadily in your ears. The hum of conversation deflates into a hush. A loud voice begins an annual tradition, “Many years ago, four dusty roads converged on this spot…” It’s the first night of camp, and you are about to be initiated into a team.

Play and games are ways for humans to experience new forms of agency or motivation. The counselors at CBS are challenged to consider how they are going to create new experiences for the campers. What are they planning to teach them through their actions, intentions and attention?

Much of a camp term is defined by the newness of each day. Campers participate in individualized schedules, and experience a new theme every day. In contrast, team competition creates a narrative through which the entire term flows. It is the one thing that carries over from day to day, week to week, and even summer to summer. For many of your campers, team competition is why they ask to come back each year. My son will occasionally wear a camp shirt during the year, but his team shirts are in his regular rotation.

So what is going on that makes this so captivating?

Consider the experience of a first grader attending camp for the first time. You are excited by all the activity, and increasingly anxious because you are a small fish in a pond full of bigger kids that all seem to know each other. Team competition is a shortcut to community.

These teams are fraternities, sororities, secret societies, instant families. For a little kid, it means older friends. For a new camper, it means instant acceptance into a group; an identity. For girls, they will join either the Lone Stars (green) or the Silver Spurs (purple). Boys will become a Texas Ranger (red) or a Rough Rider (blue). The Lone Stars are the sister team of the Texas Rangers and the Silver Spurs are the sister team of the Rough Riders.

Team Initiation

On the first night of a term, all new campers are handed non-descript bags with their names on them. Following a ceremony, in which the history of the teams is read aloud, the campers are invited to reach inside and find a painted cube, determining their team. In that moment, they all rush out to the soccer fields to be welcomed by a wild, enthusiastic, mass of campers and counselors. Theo becomes a Rough Rider clip.mov

Note: Teams are chosen mostly at random before the beginning of the term. Full-time staff “balance the books,” making sure that the teams have equal numbers of campers and counselors after initiation. This means that your camper might be on a different team than their friends. One rule remains constant: families are on the same team. We don’t want siblings on opposite sides.

Teams should feel bigger than a jersey, which is why you don’t just get to “join” a team. After meeting up with your new crew, each team takes the new campers off to their secret hideouts for initiation rituals. Don’t worry, they are all very tame. Primarily, it’s a time for new campers to learn how team competition works, hear the “legendary origins” of their teams, practice hand signals and cheers, and to get covered in team-specific paint. From that moment on, your camper is on a team for life.

Daily Competition Every morning after breakfast, all campers gather to assigned locations around camp to play competitive games against their age group. This means that the 4th grade Lone Stars compete against the 4th grade Silver Spurs in a different game every day. Sometimes the games are familiar, like soccer or ultimate frisbee. Other times, your camper will have to learn a new game, like Rocks or *O-Ball.

Winning matters. If your team wins that morning, you earn your entire team a point. There may be as many as 14 games being played any given morning, which means as many points will be distributed. Points convert into a head start for the final competition, The Amazing Race, which determines which teams win the term.

We love team competition because it is another place to build character. Sure, campers work on good sportsmanship. That’s a given, but team competition is about more than what is happening on a field or court. Campers get to play because they are members of the team, not just because they are great athletes. This means opportunities for campers to cheer their teammates on. Not every game is familiar, and that levels the playing field for all campers. Kids who might spend hours each week playing soccer won’t necessarily have a major advantage when playing 3-Ball.

Creating Moments The older campers are afforded an opportunity to participate in 2 special events. One afternoon per term, all of camp gathers to watch the oldest girls compete in a high stakes flag football game. This is no pick-up game. The girls have a crew of coaches, who help them practice and train. The field is raucous with cheers from all for teams.

The boys get to participate in a beloved camp tradition - Night Team Comp. Under the lights of the Hippodrome, the Rough Riders and Texas Rangers compete in a basketball game unlike any other. Campers fill the bleachers, snacks, drinks and snowcones are “sold” at the concession stand and counselors provide live play-by-play over the PA. The dance classes perform routines between quarters, and of COURSE there is a halftime show.

Legends are born during these two events, as the younger campers see their heroes score on deep touchdowns and sink buzzer-beating threes. They imagine themselves competing in their respective games in future summers, waiting for their chance to shine.

I remember the night my brother and I were initiated into the Rough Riders, and I fondly remember leading that same team as “team sponsor” when I was a counselor. I still keep my blue Rough Rider bandana, emblazoned with an old logo lost to time as a keepsake from my time at camp. While those memories and that bandana are special, nothing prepared me for the joy of my son joining the same team as his dad and uncles. We belong to the same brotherhood, having gone through the same initiation in the same secret hideout. Our shared experience enhances his time at camp (and gives him something to report back on Closing Day). His younger brother wants to go to camp just so he can officially join the team with us, and both of them talk about leading the team as counselors someday.

Team competition morphs summer camp from an individual experience into a communally created legend. The old cheers mix with the new, flags are passed down from one generation to the next, and exploits on the field are woven into the greater tapestry of camp. To a parent, it’s another t-shirt. But to a camper, their team colors represent an identity.

*O-Ball is one of the more perfect games that should totally be a real sport. It’s a fast-paced combination of tennis, nukem, and knockout that rewards strategy as much as strength. It’s the one game that I miss playing above all the rest.