Sportsmanship is about both winning as well as losing. Both can be done with grace. There are life lessons to be learned either way.
Sometime late in May 2019, I saw that St. Thomas College was winning too much at sports and was to be kicked out of their conference. This is taking place somewhere in The Great State of Minnesota, the home of Ilhan Omar if I’m not mistaken. It used to be part of America. Not sure it still is.
It Isn’t All About Winning
It seems to me there is enough blame to go around for all parties. If you are winning all that much, don’t you think it’s about time you upgraded your conference? It’s Just a thought. You are doing a disservice to your athletes by only winning. Even though nobody likes losing, it does have some benefits. They may be harsh lessons, but they are real life lessons. The benefit of losing prepares you for the real world. Suck it up. You learn from losing too. It isn’t just about winning. Often, you learn more from losing than you do from winning.
As for the rest of the league, the coaches are failing to learn how to upgrade your game. You are really messing up your athletes. You’re making them weak people with all this negative reinforcement. You may not always be the best, but never being the best is a game changer too. It diminishes your effort and lessens your heart for the game. Studies have shown weak people tend to be socialists. Wonder why?
Sportsmanship And Character Building
Sportsmanship is not only about winning and losing. It’s about building character. To become a great sportsman, one must learn to win and lose graciously. Part of good sportsmanship is being humble. Even Mohammad Ali, one of the greatest boxing showmen ever, was a humble man in real life. The best part of being a coach is to be able to contribute to this character building in all the athletes one touches. Any coach or player, who fails to comprehend this, fails.
A couple of examples of this happened in the NFL last week. One was good and the other, not so much. The Buccaneers were beating the Panthers. At the end of the game, instead of scoring against a hapless opponent, the coach called in the play, ‘Take a knee.’ It’s not the first time either. A previous week the Buccaneers were at the end of the game against the Jaguars. They were winning 30 to 12. They were within the 10-yard line. Once again, coach Bowles called in to take a knee. Now, that’s sportsmanship.
The other event happened at the end of the Falcon’s and Saint’s game. NOLA was winning 48 to 17. Same story, in the waning seconds the Saints were within the Falcon’s 10 yard line. They chose to run up the score instead of taking a knee. What made this more egregious, was the coach called for a knee but the offense defied him and went for it. They should fine the lot of them.
Future Leadership
Learning to excel and achieving high aspirations is part of character building. What kind of leadership can we expect in the future if we don’t plant the proper seeds in the youth of today? We reap what we sew. The lessons of today fuel the direction of the future. We saw that come back on the field this week.
