I like winning. I admit it.
Listening to some of the people in coaching I compete against, you’d think that winning has absolutely no value to them. This, of course, often comes at the end of a loss. I’m not prepared to make any claims that the losses don’t matter. It affects me–not so much that I expect to never lose or don’t want my kids to experience loss, but I feel that kids ought to take pride in victory, especially at a time when athletic competitiveness is often treated like a communicable disease. Here in the crucible of sport children are still made to understand challenge and to accept failure as it comes. Yet here there are always some who interfere with that, and make it difficult for those like me to challenge kids, because they have no desire to see such challenges leveled, either against their own kids or kids in general.
We faced this situation today. We came up against a referee who openly claimed our players were too young to have any real ability and shouldn’t be held to standards. Then he proceeded to let them play basketball like it was football–like they were 4 yr olds running with the ball from point A to B without thought of dribbling. Nonetheless we battled back and forth until the buzzer sounded. When it was over, this particular team, unfamiliar with loss had lost by 2. The loss is debatable. The ref took away 2 points earlier, making a call from the wrong end of the court that everyone around the play itself claimed was wrong. .. and terribly late.
Still, a loss is a loss, and though it isn’t deserved, it is a useful tool to motivate them in the future. Victory feels much better once you know what losing feels like.