Team sports are a funny thing.

Compared with individual sports, the lows are lower. If one person makes a mistake, the whole team suffers. One mispass, one slip, one lapse of attention results in not just one person’s demise but that of the whole group. You are only as strong as your weakest link.

Yet compared with individual sports, the highs are also higher. One person’s victory is the whole team’s victory. When you rely on other people, as you must in team sports, you achieve greater things than if there were just multiple copies of yourself. Your teammates can amplify your strengths and cover your weaknesses. And in this process, you forge new friendships and a bond that runs deeper than most acquaintances.

Even though I’ve competed for many years in table tennis and distance running, my most memorable sporting experiences were in volleyball, a sport I only played seriously for one year in high school. I remember being terrible when our team first came together – forgetting positions, fumbling passes, missing serves, and the frustration that came with miscommunication. I hated that the whole team lost a point off of one person’s mistake. But I also remember the exhilaration we felt when we pulled off a rehearsed play, began to serve, receive and spike more consistently and having our team progress as a unit, beating teams we previously lost to. I cried more in that year of teamwork than all my years of individual sports, tears of both pain and joy.

The losses hurt more when you had six on a court. The wins also felt more glorious. The whole experience was more exhilarating, more addicting.