Unselfish Team Play: The Key to Success in Basketball and Life
By Ken Reed
Anyone who’s played a team sport — basketball, baseball, football, hockey, soccer, etc. — knows that teamwork and putting the needs of the group above individual wants and desires, is a primary key to the ultimate success of the team.
The fact is, it’s a primary key to the success of a society too.
Historically, the United States has achieved its greatest advancements and achievements when a high percentage of citizens — and its leaders — are committed to work together for the common good. To say the least, that’s not the case today in our divided country.
I was doing some reading recently and came across a terrific quote from Bill Bradley, a Rhodes scholar, NBA champion and long-time U.S. senator. It was from his book “Life on the Run.” Bradley was well-known as the consummate teammate on the championship New York Knick teams of the ’70’s. He was also well-known as a senator who held bipartisanship as an important value during his time in Congress.
Here’s what he wrote. All sports teams — and the country as a whole — should heed this wisdom.
I believe that basketball, when a certain level of unselfish team play is realized, can serve as kind of a metaphor for ultimate cooperation. It is a sport where success, as symbolized by the championship, requires that the dictates of community prevail over selfish personal impulses.
A team championship exposes the limits of self-reliance, selfishness, and irresponsibility. One man alone can’t make it happen; in fact, the contrary is true: a single man can prevent it from happening.
The success of the group assures the success of the individual, but not the other way around.
—Bill Bradley, starter on two NBA champion New York Knick teams and three-term U.S. Senator, 1979-1997
Ken Reed, Sports Policy Director, League of Fans

Sports Forum Podcast
Episode #27 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: Kids’ Sports: How We Can Take Back the Game and Restore Quality Family Time In the Process – Linda Flanagan is author of “Take Back the Game: How Money and Mania Are Ruining Kids’ Sports and Why It Matters.” We discuss how commercialized and professionalized youth sports are hurting kids and their families. Linda writes extensively about how youth sports can hijack families, and family outings, non-sports activities and bonding time are lost in the pursuit of the next club team game or travel tournament.
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Episode #26 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: How Can We Fix Youth Sports? – John O’Sullivan is Founder and CEO of Changing the Game Project and author of “Changing the Game: The Parents Guide to Raising Happy, High Performing Athletes and Giving Youth Sports Back to Our Kids.”
Episode #25 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: Physical Education Should Be a Critical Component of K-12 School Design – Michael Horn is co-founder of the Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation.
Episode #24 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: Mental Health and Athletes: Ending the Stigma – Nathan Braaten and Taylor Ricci are the founders of Dam Worth It, a non-profit created to end the stigma around mental health at colleges and universities through sport, storytelling, and community creation.
Episode #23 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: Olympian Benita Fitzgerald Mosley Talks Title IX, Youth Sports and the Olympics.
Episode #22 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: Rethinking Sports Fandom with Author Craig Calcaterra – We discuss Calcaterra’s new book “Rethinking Fandom: How to Beat the Sports-Industrial Complex at Its Own Game” and explore new ways to be a fan.
Media
"How We Can Save Sports" author Ken Reed appears on Fox & Friends to explain how there's "too much adult in youth sports."
Ken Reed appears on Mornings with Gail from KFKA Radio in Colorado to discuss bad parenting in youth athletics.
“Should College Athletes Be Paid?” Ken Reed on The Morning Show from Wisconsin Public Radio
Ken Reed appears on KGNU Community Radio in Colorado (at 02:30) to discuss equality in sports and Title IX.
Ken Reed appears on the Ralph Nader Radio Hour (at 38:35) to discuss his book The Sports Reformers: Working to Make the World of Sports a Better Place, and to talk about some current sports issues.
- League of Fans Sports Policy Director Ken Reed quoted in Washington Post column titled "What happened to P.E.? It’s losing ground in our push for academic improvement," by Jay Mathews
League of Fans is a sports reform project founded by Ralph Nader to fight for the higher principles of justice, fair play, equal opportunity and civil rights in sports; and to encourage safety and civic responsibility in sports industry and culture.
Sports & Torts – Ken Reed, Sports Policy Director, League of Fans – at the American Museum of Tort Law
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