I'm on the Mock Trial team at my school and we're pretty good. Actually we're really good as we win quite often. For those of you who don't know what Mock Trial is, it's kind of like an "on the spot" play. Its like we know what we want to happen in the end, and we have an outline of how to get there, but we have to take any "twists" as they come.
My school has set many national records and as we are about to make another shot at winning state in two weeks, I have to ask myself, is it worth it? As having such a good record, we're facing pressure from all sides. Parents, teachers, coaches, friends, family, the student body, the town, people who used to live here...you get the picture. We're held to a higher standard than the other teams competing. When we lost last year, it was a shock and huge disappointment to everyone. In two weeks, we'll be fighting to get back our title, but we're not naive. We know other teams want to win. We've seen it in how they treat us.
I'm not sure if other schools mean for us to hear all the mean things they say about us or not, but either way, we do. They're mad we win all the time, they say we're stuck up and cocky. I realize why they would think that. They're jealous of us. We're not mean to other teams, I think our coaches would kill us if we ever even thought about doing something mean to another team. Other teams spy on us and everything. We're honest. We use our own material and come up with things by ourselves.
I know they're scared of us. We know we're intimidating...I would be terrified to go against my team. But don't think they know what we go through to win. It's an uphill battle all the time. They may be scared to go against us. But we're afraid of letting everyone down. It's a great feeling to win. But to us the vicitory is a little bit sweeter, knowing we didn't cause "that" look. If another team is to lose...then they hear "look how great a season you had" and "well, you never stood a chance against a chance against them, they give up there entire lives to this thing". If we were to lose, it'd be "look guys, see this here, this is why you lost."
I know it sucks when you lose, but keep in mind, the winners aren't always the lucky ones...
So I'm left wondering. What are we as kids suppossed to do? Pressure and stress is our lifes. But if you're being groomed to be a state champion, pressure knows no limits, how are we and our kids going to survive in a world telling us if we don't win, if we aren't the best, then what's the point?
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