The music behind our athletes: the improvement of teamwork

Johnnie football and the Bennie swim team are two sports teams on campus that perform very well. But is their success due to countless hours of practice and levels of skill, or are there other unaccounted factors? Have you ever thought about what happens behind the scenes of these amazing teams? What happens during practice? Or even what goes on in the locker room? Maybe the reason that our CSB+SJU athletes are so successful is due to the music they listen to.

Senior quarterback Trey Feeney feels that music helps bring the football team together.

“The vibes are different when the guys are dancing and singing,” Feeney said.

There’s a big difference in the “vibe” of the team when music is playing versus when it isn’t, according to Feeney. Whether that’s music playing during practice, before a home game or even in the locker room. Feeney says the team is told to turn off their music at 12 p.m. before home games. Though, if they choose to, the players can wear headphones for the rest of warmup.

Recently Michael Jackson has been Feeney’s go-to when it’s his turn for aux. He was inspired after recently seeing the new Michael Jackson movie. He also said that there is a very wide range of music played, from rap to country, depending on who gets aux.

Though swimming and football are very different, senior swimmer Haley Zelen has similar positive thoughts about how music helps her team.

“I feel like it gets everybody kind of in the same mindset,” Zelen said. “If some people are having a rough day, it just helps bring them up in a sense”

Listening to music even helps the swim team get to know each other better.

“It definitely helps people get together, and you learn more about them,” Zelen said. “Especially once you learn the genre of music that they like. I feel like it kind of says something about them in a way, it helps you get to know them, maybe their background a little more.”

Similar to the football team, the Bennies can play music up to a certain point during home meets.

“Meets we’ll have it going up until like 15 minutes before when you get the national anthem going,” Zelen said.

During swim meets, officials need it to be quiet so the swimmers can hear the buzzer at the beginning of the race.

While swimming, it can also be hard to hear, due to being underwater; Zelen says that’s not a problem.

“If you play it loud enough, you can hear it all the time.” Zelen said.

The Bennie swimmers also play a wide variety of music, even letting their coach have aux at some practices.

“Our coach is a big country fan,” Zelen said. “It’s a lot of pop, rap, anything to get people going.”

One of the team’s favorite songs is “Hot Wings” from the movie Rio, according to Zelen. She says that she tries to play it every time she brings her speaker to lift.

“I know I gotta play it at least once, or I try to,” Zelen said. “There’s just a couple random inside jokes that’ll come up.”

Though listening to music may not improve skill, it has the ability to change the dynamics of a team: a team that can then lift each other up and encourage each other to do their best. So the next time the Johnnies lose a game or the Bennies lose a meet, maybe we can blame it on the person who had aux beforehand. This is the opinion of Emily Hammond, CSB junior.