Rift between teammates - how to move forward?

Well, that sucks.

First, You sound like you are taking the right approach, being mature and leaving the door open to reconciliation. The best case scenario is that all involved learn, grow, forgive and the team becomes stronger.

However, you should probably think about if the situation gets worse or another breach of trust happens- How will you respond? Then you won't respond emotionally or in a way that makes things worse. You will have a plan.

Or just talk the jerk into transferring. :)

People co-exist with other people they don't really get along with all the time. Learning it college is as good a place as any.

You can be on the same team, run at the same time, but nobody says you are obligated to hang out afterwards.

After practice they do their thing, you do yours.

That's the great thing about running. Their performance is not affected by yours, yours is not affected by theirs.

Like EZ 10 said earlier, at the end of practice you go your own ways and do your own thing. I couldn't imagine hanging out with a lot of the guys on my team except for at XC/Track practice. We got along fine but a lot of us had lives away from running. First of all there was school and trying to stay on top of that and do well was a lot right there. There were a few guys that roomed together but most people lived with other friends. It makes for a good break.

I was on a college team with plenty of people I didn't like. Could train with them but would not talk to them at all or hang out outside of practice/meets. Was not a problem, and as someone else said very similar to the real world. I work with plenty of people who are terrible but I just deal with it at work and never think about them outside of work.

More details would make this more interesting and likely aid in ability to give advice.

Don't throw away relationships over some college chicks.

Yea, what actually happened? Spill the beans!

I've had my share of toxic or just flat out bad teammates in the past; those people that just can't get along with anyone and talent be damned, they are just wet blankets.

My advice- run, leave the high school drama at the door.

Use this rift as motivation and start destroying this ex-friend in workout/races. As long as you’re faster than him, you’re all set and in the right. And you don’t want to be friends with someone slower than you anyways

life moves in one direction-forward! Get the job done. Train hard, study hard, and let the BS die in the past.

briswiss wrote:

Use this rift as motivation and start destroying this ex-friend in workout/races. As long as you’re faster than him, you’re all set and in the right. And you don’t want to be friends with someone slower than you anyways

This.

The whole rift is likely about who got to wear the 3/4 split shorts during practice.

I have no Idea what the guy did so this may not be true (every situation is different).

But I had a teammate who basically was really hard to deal with one season and really hurt his relationship with a bunch of people on the team. but at the end of the day we were all teenagers or young 20 somethings. The dude and the main people (hopefully me too) on the team all turned around and learned how to be better people from it I believe... 8 years later now he's one of the closest friends I have from the team still keep in touch and hang out (even when he lived 2 states away). Friendships are like running... consistently "putting in the work" (either miles, or time spent with a friend) will build a good foundation that will last years and can weather most hiccups along the way. Keep your head up, try to learn something. While a couple months may seem like an eternity in college, in the reality a good friendship last years and can go through bad years it's just part of the process

Two ways to solve this:

1. Olive branch- go have a beer or coffee and talk things out

2. Dance-off - Gather the team and some Bee Gees music and dance it out!

One time, on my team, one of my friends banged my other friends ex after they had broken up two weeks prior. One year later and it's still kinda weird.

Sounds like a metaphor for America right now. How about you learn to talk it out with the others. This idea that I disagree with you on something and we can no longer associate. This idea is very new and in my opinion driven by this social media culture.

Talk to each other and figure out how to get along. You dont have to be best friends but this idea you cant get past a spat is absurd. I assume nobody killed anyone and this is not life and death. Learn to live with people you don't agree with on every issue in life.

If it happened during practice/meet - people don't think well with hypoxic brains it will be water under the bridge by tomorrow. If its something off track related, best course of action is forgive (once) and don't forget. The mature thing to do is keep moving forward, they are your teammates. They need you and you need them.

In football, we had teammates literally throwing punches at points during the season at each other. Typically in two a days or spring where we've been smacking the bleep out of each other for three weeks and we're all tired and frustrated. After practice, we'd all be hanging out joking about things later that night. Things happen.

Mature people figure out how to keep moving forward.

Swim Bike Run wrote:

If it happened during practice/meet - people don't think well with hypoxic brains it will be water under the bridge by tomorrow. If its something off track related, best course of action is forgive (once) and don't forget. The mature thing to do is keep moving forward, they are your teammates. They need you and you need them.

In football, we had teammates literally throwing punches at points during the season at each other. Typically in two a days or spring where we've been smacking the bleep out of each other for three weeks and we're all tired and frustrated. After practice, we'd all be hanging out joking about things later that night. Things happen.

Mature people figure out how to keep moving forward.

Like he said. Mature people figure out how to keep moving forward. I once got in a fist fight with a teammate who said I wasn't trying hard enough in races. After the fight we were friends again. He even came to my wedding 5 years or so later.

College is too short to hold grudges, so I say just address it directly with him and the rest of the team. It’s obvious he screwed up, but it sounds like you guys need him - so try to work through it. Be open & honest, and keep in mind that you don’t need to be BFFs with everyone on the team, so if you don’t want to get chipotle with him you don’t have to.

Team politics never make teams better. Erase the notion of “captains/leaders” and get back to the two things that matter: focusing on training and building a good team environment. Have fun, get each other to buy into the program — good things will happen, but don’t try to make everyone fit the same mold

another option: every time he goes left from campus, you can just go right