I wrote my paper on how sports is related to family.  Not the family as in our internal blood related family, but in a way where the team will act as brothers or sisters.  To me, a family is more than just the people that are related to us.  It can be more than just our parents, brothers or sisters.  A family consist of two or more people that can say and do anything with each other.  Where working together is very comfortable and easy to do and when they do, their successful.  These people would do anything for one another whether it is protecting each other to just talking to them.  Everything that has to do with each other just feels right and not one thing in the world can break that bond.  They all love each other, trust one another, and laugh and cry together.  They do almost everything the same way and for this reason, they are considered family.
 
We all see this a lot around us throughout our entire life.  Many examples of it can be shown on the big screen or even personally in one's actual real life.  It is shown in the movie "Miracle" of how the group of kids chosen to play for the 1980 Hockey Olympic games did not get along when first chosen.  These kids later on began working like a family by beating every team in the Olympics, especially the Russians, and taking home the gold.  It is also shown in the movie "Remember the Titans" and their problem between the blacks and whites playing on the same team.   It shows the struggles they go through as a team, but it also shows the relationships gained over time. The kids end up not thinking about what the color of their teammates skin is but the love they all have for the game.  They ended up playing with love for each other and for the game by winning the state championship going undefeated in the season.

I was able to personally go through this same situation in real life.  Going into my senior year's football season, we were not projected to do that great in the season.  We were defending division two state Champions, being ranked third overall in the entire state in all divisions and went 13-0 my junior year.  Out of those twenty two starters on the team, eighteen of them were seniors and were going to be gone for my senior year season.  Without me even starting the year before, I was elected to be a captain for my senior year only having a few minutes of playing time throughout the entire junior year season.  As a captain, I had the responsibility to take control of the team and to do things as a team.  During pre-season and also during the season, the two other captains and I held meetings and gatherings to go out as an entire team.  We would play pick up games of either basketball, football and even water balloon fights outside of practice.  We would go to lunch as a team to the same restaurant every Saturday after film and workout and we ended up doing everything together during the season.  We all became a family and we used the word very often while playing the game.  That year, we ended up going undefeated in the regular season, winning the league and making it to the superbowl once again for the second year in a row held at Gillette Stadium.  That game, we ended up losing 29-26 in the very last minute of the game.  It was the most upsetting and depressing lose, but to be able to spend that moment with my brothers, I wouldn't have changed that for the world.  To a team that our community and surrounding communities were talking very shallow about to come up on top like that and go 12-1 in the entire season was a very big success in my books.  It wouldn't have mattered if we won the superbowl, to even get that far and have a game played the way we played, was absolutely amazing.  We all came together throughout the year and became a family.  We played like a family every game, every quarter, and every snap.  We ended up becoming the most successful class to ever graduate from our high school going 36-2 in the three years playing varsity football.  Being able to play football with our best friends as a family was one of the biggest, if not the biggest, highlights of our high school career and I keep in touch with almost every single one of the kids on that team.  Whenever we go home for break, we all end up doing things together once again as a family and team and that bond will never leave.

Sports is a way to create relationships that will last for an entire life.  It teaches us to work together and succeed in a fashionable manner by treating each other with respect. It has almost the same exact qualities a family has when it comes to the players, and just like a family, those qualities with each other can last forever.