Heart, Teamwork Propel PARC Dodgeball Team to Inspiring “9th Runner Up” Finish

Dodgeball giveth and dodgeball taketh away

Someone wise once said, “Either you win, or you learn.”

Well, it could be said the PARC Dodgeball Team did a lot of learning in their inaugural season of the Dynamic Sports & Social Club Dodgeball League, which features abnormally skilled dodgeball competition from around Silicon Valley.

This past Wednesday, PARC proudly finished “9^th runner up” in the 12-team league.

While the PARC team ended the season with a defeat, they left the sweat-stained hardwood victorious in spirit.

The team, made up of a remarkable interdisciplinary roster of voluntary players from across PARC’s hardware labs, software labs and business teams, started the season with little knowledge about the sport – and came together to establish average-to-above-average proficiency, test and execute various innovative strategies, and ultimately win (four games technically, but also most likely the respect and admiration of all players and fans in attendance).

Teamwork makes the dream work

“Dodgeball is a microcosm of life,” says Ravi Neelakantan, PARC Research Staff, Hardware Systems Labs, and a team captain. “It’s kind of like how we work at PARC, a diverse collection of skillsets from different disciplines coming together to find inventive solutions, finding synergy in a common goal, using failure as a natural requisite to make breakthroughs.”

PARC will eagerly put in their bid to compete in the next season of dodgeball.

“Teamwork is a big part of what makes being at PARC special,” says Lisa Rythen Larsson, PARC Senior Business Analyst, Intellectual Capital Management, and a top sniper. “Whether in our labs and offices or on the hardwood, we thrive on collaboration, shared challenges, digging deep to find that collective will to crush it.”

As someone else wise once said, “Teamwork makes the dream work.”

Learn more about the culture and people at PARC.