Learning how to lose
From the desk of Wally Dawkins, Athletic Director:
My high school coach looked at me and, as serious as he could be, told me something that I have never forgotten. It had to do with how you act when you lose.
I was assuming that the coach was referring to losing an athletic contest, like a basketball game, tennis match or on the softball diamond. But he was also talking about the game of life…and the games of life.
I would like to tell you that I have never lost a game, but that would be untrue.
I would also like to tell you that as a high school varsity basketball coach, I have won 702 games in 33 years as a head coach. That is true! (if you include the two years where I coached varsity girls’ basketball along with the boy’s team).
What I will not tell you is how many games I also lost. There are two reasons why I will not tell you how many games ended up on the losing side of the scoreboard. First of all, I really didn’t keep up with the number of losses as I did the “W’s”. Secondly…I lost a lot of games, and I don’t really want you to know how many.
I do know this: If you are involved in competition of any kind, over any period of time, if you play long enough…you will lose.
I still believe that not only was Michael Jordan one of the best athletes of all time, and certainly in my book the best basketball player ever, he still lost. “Air Jordan” won six NBA Championships but also got beat hundreds of times. The most skilled, super athletic, talented, and smart Michael Jordan was cut from his JV Basketball Team as a high school sophomore.
We probably don’t think much about the star of Space Jams being a loser, or having to deal with losses, since he won so much. But even the man who wears six Championship rings because of all the wins he and his team amassed, fell short hundreds of times.
Not long ago, I listened to a coach whose team had just lost in a collegiate National Championship Game. He referred back to his meeting with members of the media after the heart breaking loss.
He was answering a question from a reporter concerning his ability to be calm and congratulatory to his opponent, even after the gut wrenching, last second defeat for the national title.
“You know” he replied, “I learned long ago that after a win, you want to go to the press conference to relish the victory and answer questions about the game and your team. But I also learned and equally important, was that you had to attend the post-game press conference after a tough loss, to show people that you knew how to lose with class and dignity.”
Wouldn’t it be great that all of us, when we lost, could show class and dignity?
Wouldn’t it be awesome, that when the contest was over, we could still be gracious and conciliatory?
How much different would it be, if even after the “agony of defeat,” that we could still maintain our composure and conduct ourselves in a manner that reflected good sportsmanship and self-discipline?
I can hear you saying right now, “Impossible”.
I’m saying, “ART FORM!”
Learning how to lose is basically an “art form”. It actually takes practice. It takes experience (which I have unfortunately). It takes learning from the times that we acted like an idiot, or a sore loser, and we were embarrassed so badly by our own behavior, that we don’t want to ever act that way again.
As a Brook Hill coach, it is my duty, and the duty of the BH Coaching Staff, to teach our athletes how to be humble in victory and gracious in defeat. We take seriously how our players react after disappointment…and learning from the mistake of reacting the wrong way.
As a 51AVƵ, I lose little battles everyday. I fall short in my actions, my attitude, what I say and what I think. But because of Jesus Christ and His Grace, in the end…I will win. We all win!
Now, I must be honest. I hate to lose. Losing keeps me up at night. As the line in the Ole Coach Joke book says, “Losin’ is worse than dyin’…cause you have to live with losin’.”
It really hurts to lose, to fall short or to be disappointed that we did not win. How we react to losing however, may or may not tell people more about us than we really want them to know.
So I have never forgotten these words of my high school coach. A coach who was extremely successful at the college level, working with Olympic programs and not to mention his ability to motivate and mentor high school students.
“You have to know how to lose before you can appreciate winning,” he noted.
Wise words for all of us.
And that’s another reason to be “ALL ORANGE…All The Time!”