I have never been a big fan of the saying that “winning is not important”. Because it is. It always is. At every level. We play the game, and we compete, with the ultimate goal of winning. It’s that simple. Adults and kids of every age love to win and hate to lose. Some more so than others. And there is nothing wrong with that. But we are kidding ourselves if we think that winning isn’t important. Youth sports studies always indicate that winning does not rank high on the list of reasons why kids participate in competitive sports. And that is very true. If you have ever had the pleasure of coaching kids of any age you should understand that. Having fun, meeting new friends, being part of a team and learning new skills are always higher on that list. Winning comes much closer to the bottom for kids. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t important to them. Nor does it mean that it isn’t an important part of competition. It is just not as high a priority for kids. More important to adults The reality is that winning is much more important to the adults than it is to the kids. The problems arise when adults are unable to cope with winning and losing in sports. In their own adult games that they play, or worse yet, in games that are for the kids and the adults are merely involved as coaches or spectators. Like most adults, I love to win and have always hated to lose. In fact, I have always been a horrible loser. I am sure that part of it was because of the culture I was brought up in. The other team never played well enough to beat us. When we lost it was because we played poorly enough to lose. It can be difficult to give credit where credit is due – namely to the other team when they have defeated you. The first time I can actually remember that happening was when I was playing professionally in the American Hockey League and our coach Robbie Ftorek told us after a game that we had played as well as we could that day, but the other team played better. Maybe that is a result of having been fortunate enough to have played on good teams where we were expected to win or had a chance to win every game. That is not always the case. Maybe it was a result of coaches not recognizing how well the team actually did play on a given day because they didn’t win. If you didn’t win, you couldn’t have played well, could you? Jack Mcdonovan
Illustration by Nilufer Zakirova
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