Solutions to a Counselor’s Absurd Tribal Comp Dilemma

Full disclosure: most of the counselors hanging out with your kids this week are extremely competitive. Like, we-cried-after-losing-board-games-growing-up competitive. Maybe sometimes we still do. So removing ourselves emotionally from the victories and defeats of Tribal Comp? It probably won’t happen.

Sure, one might point out, you are leaders of arbitrary tribes competing over how fast a nine year-old kicks a soccer ball around a pool, or whether a black and white spotted ball bouncing in between clumps of forty campers meanders its way into the net. There’s no way that can dictate your emotions for anywhere from 12-36 hours right?

And then the first competition rolls around, Huawni soccer, and things aren’t turning out as expected, and you’re losing, and you have this knot in your stomach that’s reminiscent of getting knocked out of the playoffs your senior year of high school, and you feel ridiculous that the knot is even there and a little self-conscious about the aforementioned ridiculousness of the competition, and then try to regain a little composure and respect for yourself, and then maybe remember some perspectives and your role as a counselor on the team, and somehow muster up a subtle cheer, where you find that just slightly more satisfying than the silence that you kind of would rather just sit in.

Yet you still can’t believe how excited those other counselors are acting on the other tribe. Like, it’s just a silly game, calm down, quit acting so excited about everything. You can’t believe how incredibly selfish and unsportsmanlike and utterly ridiculous they’re being in taking all of this so seriously, and how dare they rub it all in your face.

But after all these competing and candidly hypocritical thoughts and the emotional turmoil associated with each one, you catch a glimpse of another fellow tribe member, who might not be in the I-cried-after-losing-board-games camp, cheering through the uniform disappointment of a sideline that’s beginning to feel utterly deflated, and recognize how much more mature and influential they’re acting, and that energy they’re emitting is disseminating throughout campers and counselors alike. And suddenly you feel your own hands start clapping, and that competitive flare has returned despite the knot that still hasn’t completely left.

And then you remember the moldable nature of the saddened faces of kids probably still in their I-cry-after-losing-board-games phase, and think about how Tribal Comp, in all its events, gives you opportunities to celebrate the highs of victory and to reassure through the lows of defeat. And so maybe your own feelings don’t matter nearly as much as reminding someone that their worth and value isn’t dictated by the outcome of a twenty-minute grotesque adaptation of a sport.

And then you’re sitting down the next morning writing a blog post about the whole ordeal and feel a peculiar sort of shame over the extremes of your unchecked emotions, and are incredibly thankful for the other campers and counselors that hold you in check, remind you of sportsmanship, so that somehow campers may have learned something from looking at you and your poor attempt at a feigned smile, knowing that you desperately needed the reminder that all those eyes that have deemed myself, as a counselor, important need a similar assignment and value, and you certainly are capable of that.

So thank goodness for Tribal Comp and Loving Kids.

But yeah, of course, this is all just hypothetical and everything.

*this is another blog by Huawni Counselor Matt Gillham. Matt is a recent graduate of the University of Alabama with a masters in economics and will be consulting with Ernst & Young starting in August.