I hope that you win with class and lose with grace. Congratulate the other side when things don’t go your way, and be a kind and graceful winner when they do. That’s a big wish, but most of all, I hope you don’t inherit my temper and the urge to break things when you lose. It’s embarrassing, expensive, and even at 44, when your Uncle Drew outdrives me and I duck hook one into the woods, I still have to talk myself out of snapping a golf club in half.
But first, let me clarify: I’m talking sports and sportsmanship, but like much of what happens on the field, this translates to the rest of your life.
Let’s do winning first, mostly because while winning isn’t easy, winning with grace is way easier than losing with class. Not that I have a championship trophy from the time I was kind and graceful after dropping 40 points on a crosstown rival, but I do know how to win without making the other guy feel like shit. And while winning well is much easier than losing well, there are plenty of shitty winners.
I like the sports cliche “when you get to the end zone, act like you’ve been there before.” It’s a nice way to frame being a graceful winner; it encourages restraint. Celebrate with your teammates, congratulate your opponent on a well-played game, and demonstrate some humility in victory. It also shows an an unspoken kindness to the losing side.
When you win, it’s easy to forget how bad it feels to try your hardest, give everything you have, and still lose. Winning with grace means remembering the pain that comes with losing, and if you’ve forgotten, that shit hurts. It hurts like being stabbed, so don’t make your victory about pouring salt in someone else’s wound, especially while it’s still bleeding.
To be clear, I’m not telling you that victory celebrations are inherently wrong. Why? I think the ideal of the stoic sportsman could have problematic roots. As I articulated why I believe what I do about sportsmanship, I considered how much of it comes from my own (white) cultural norms. And that, coupled with the fact that non-white athletes were excluded from professional and college sports for much of the last century got me thinking.
Is the ideal of the stoic sportsman based on white norms of sportsmanlike conduct from an era of all white athletes? Maybe. I’m no cultural historian, but maybe. If it is, I’d be perpetuating a racist cultural stereotype if I told you exuberant celebrations are inherently wrong. I’m not saying it is or isn’t, because I don’t know the answer. But it is worth considering.
In the same vein, I want to avoid the idea that a man’s only feelings should be quiet victory and ejaculation. That rubs up against a type of toxic masculinity I don’t subscribe to and don’t intend to lay on you.
Cultural norms evolve, and so have people’s beliefs about what is and isn’t an appropriate celebration on a baseball diamond, football field, basketball court, etc. Bombastic bat flips, choreographed end zone dances, and sideline shenanigans would have once gotten you ejected. Now? You see them every day.
It’s easy to assume intent. That holds true everywhere, and it’s always a bad idea. Someone cuts you off on the highway and you assume they did it on purpose. And maybe they did. Or maybe they’re late for work, just got dumped, or headed to the hospital with something stuck up their butt. You can’t know what’s on other people’s minds, in their hearts, or up their butts.
Same thing holds true for sports. You see a player dancing on the sidelines with a teammate and think they’re disrespecting you. Maybe they’re just hyped and excited. Maybe that was their first career touchdown. Maybe they sat on a kicking tee.
That said, this isn’t just about sports. I’m talking about winning and losing beyond the basketball court. Like, in a real court, or in a conference room, or anywhere in life. Remember that this applies anywhere you compete with others, where the outcome is unknown, and you can succeed or fail.
When your victory means someone else’s loss, keep some compassion for them in your heart. Treat them with respect and kindness, however you choose to celebrate.
Unfortunately, you can’t always win, and you won’t always win. Sometimes you lose, and you need to be able to lose with grace. There’s a kind of sportsmanship that I’ve always aspired to. Watch Andrew Luck getting sacked. He played quarterback for the Indianapolis Colts, and regularly congratulated opposing players after they sacked him. He doesn’t even wait until he’s off the ground. 300 pounds of defensive lineman laying on top of him, Luck slaps him on the helmet and says, “ooh, nice hit, man!” or “Way to get after it!” He even calls out the other players by name, “Good tackle, Bruce!”
That’s an extreme, but I think there’s real power in that example. Not only is it kind, but it’s as if he’s unaffected but the setback. That’s part of what I find so appealing about the behavior, it says, “I may have lost today, but I remain confident about my chances tomorrow.”
Unfortunately, I haven’t always shown that kind of grace. I once broke my own ankle with a tennis racquet. I was frustrated with my partner in mixed doubles and aiming to emphatically knock clay off my shoe, but still, I had to cover my face after I typed that. That was 20 years ago, and I like to think I’ve matured, but that temper still pops up.
Here’s how I deal. First, congratulate the winner. Great game, good win, nice job. That kind of stuff, but be sincere. Second, you might be tempted to blame someone or something for your loss. Don’t. Nobody wants to hear why you shouldn’t have lost or how you were robbed. Not only is that a weak attempt to discredit someone else’s win, but it makes you sound like a brat.
Third, go feel your feelings. Losing hurts, and I don’t expect you to be okay with it. You can feel angry, sad, and dejected, but rather than emotionally castrating yourself and denying that pain, you’re better off embracing it, dealing with it, and finding an outlet for those emotions. You might need to grieve for a minute. That’s okay. Once you have, that pain makes great motivational fodder. Pour it into your preparation for the next challenge. Just try not to break anything, and if you have to break something, make it something cheap.
One last thing. Your Mom and I will feel your wins and losses too. If you need someone to help celebrate a win or suffer through a loss, your two biggest fans are always ready to go.
Game on and I love you,
Dad
I originally planned to finish this series in twelve months, intending to write one entry a week for 52 weeks. But, other things came up and I didn’t have as much time as I thought I would. We moved, you started a new school, I had other projects, etc. But finally, I’m starting my last entry in September, nine months after I’d planned. Which is the perfect intro to this one.
Time is funny like that. It marches on like a metronome, indifferent to how much you wish it would slow down or speed up. It offers no do-overs, no matter how frivolously you spend it. And it gives zero fucks what you planned to accomplish in the time you had. Once that time is over, you’ll get no more. But, it also stretches out ahead of you into an unknown future, offering untold possibility and infinite choices.
Which is why I hope you both learn to make choices about how you spend your time and understand what those choices mean. Because while there’s never enough time for everything, there’s still enough time to do almost anything.