OPINION: There Aren't Enough Team Showers Once You're Done Playing Competitive Sports
I’d argue that there’s not a single atmosphere better than walking back into the locker room after your team just got a win. Just look at the Whipsnakes right here. Granted, they had just won the first championship in PLL history so this was a little bit of a bigger win than most. But the point still remains the same. Nothing will ever come close to building up team chemistry and overall morale than the post-victory team shower.
The tunes are bumping. The jokes are flying. You’ve got the party starters already planning everything for when you get back to the dorms. If it’s a home game then you know you’re about to grub hard at the post-game tailgate and hopefully get hooked up with some beer money from the parents. It’s just one of those places that you really want to have a “first one in, last one out” type of mentality (sidenote: no bigger team player than the guy who gets into the showers first and makes sure to turn them all on so they’re warm for the rest of the squad. Nothing worse than a selfish prick who just turns theirs on). If you could bottle up that feeling, I’m convinced you could sell it for a million dollars. You got the win, you’re with the squad, you think you’re going to live forever and all of your worries disappear.
But you don’t really get that once you’re done playing sports competitively–and yes, DIII lacrosse still counts as competitive sports. Once you’re washed up and playing beer league, most guys are looking to get in and out of that locker room as soon as possible. Either you guys have a bar that you need to get to, or guys just have to go home to the wife and kids because they’re one or two “walking in belligerently drunk at 3am on a Wednesday” away from getting a divorce. The locker room celebration is a lost art once you’re done playing meaningful games. Which sucks because there will never be anything like it ever again.
And if you’re somebody who is going to chirp this blog and think it’s weird to shower with a bunch of other dudes, well then congratulations on never being a part of a team that actually meant anything in your life. Unless there’s any hazing that goes on in the showers. In which case, it definitely a little weird.