An Orchestra and Teamwork
Swen Nater

I played violin in my high school orchestra. I wasn’t very good. In fact, I was ranked last of all the violinists. I’ll blame it on my fingers being too big for the instrument but lack of talent may have had something to do with it too.
 
You will be hard-pressed to find a scenario more perfect for showing “pure teamwork” than an orchestra. Pure teamwork, in a musical group setting, happens not only when each instrumentalist plays his part to perfection, but also when each plays the part in harmony with the rest. In other words, while a violinist is playing, he is consciously listening to see, how what he does is meshing with what the others (cellist, violists, bass) are doing. The goal is one sound.
 
The novice violinist (like me) is unable to be an advanced team player because he is spending most of his mental energy just trying to play the part. However, once he has mastered the music and can play it automatically (without much conscious thought), he can then begin hearing the other instruments and start staying on the beat with them, entering with them, exiting with them, and so on and so forth.
 
It was Coach Wooden’s objective and goal to develop his teams to the point where, in its elementary form, all players could carry out their basic responsibilities, but in its advanced and finished form, all had graduated to the point where they were thinking about how to help the others carry out their assignments as well.

 There are many examples of UCLA combos that worked together in beautiful synergy. I’ll just cite two, one for offense and one for defense.

Bill Walton and Keith (Jamaal) Wilkes
It was a beautiful thing to watch. Every time Bill Walton received the basketball, Keith had already maneuvered away from his defender and moved into a position to score. On many occasions, Keith cut straight to the basket and, when Bill got the ball, he was already almost there. He received a lot of passes for layups.

Pete Trgovich and Andre McCarter
These two were guards on Coach Wooden’s last championship team. Coach once said,

I had better guards than either one of them but I never had a better combo, especially at the defensive end of the floor.

The two guards are responsible for not allowing any penetration into the key between them. It was rare any guard, no matter how quick, got between Pete and Andre.

The common thread between these two pairs is: They knew each other like twins. They worked off each other, fed off each other, helped each other, and knew what the other was thinking. These kind of players-those that have moved beyond the basic responsibilities into pure teamwork—have the following mental thinking that can be categorized as pure, unselfish, teamwork:

I’ll look to do what I can do, to help you do what you do better.

You could say, they knew each other like a hand and glove. Or, you could say, they knew each other like a cello and violin.