The Reality of Losing

After watching the grey sweatshirt coach (Bill Belicheck . . . after all these years, is that the best thing he can roll out to wear) lose and then mope around like a three year-old, one thing is clear to me: we are teaching our young people that it is okay to throw a fit when they lose something.

Having been a youth minister for many years means that I have attended my fair share of youth sporting events. You name it, I have probably been there.

While at these sporting events, I have seen a lot of kids lose. And I have seen a lot of kids absolutely lose it after they lose. They throw fits and are just not able to deal with the reality of losing (And I have to say that, for the most part, those particular situations are normally kids playing against the kids I am there to support-kids from the youth ministries I have been a part of. So at least we've got that going for us.)

I have heard it said that sports is the greatest reality show there is, that it has been reality TV for decades before the concept ever evolved. And I think that's true, to an extent. But if it is reality for winning . . . it's also reality for losing. And somewhere along the way, we are doing a poor job teaching our young people that sports involves both winning . . . and losing.

You see it all over the place. It seems like tennis is the worst. You see tennis players throwing all kinds of fits: from John McEnroe years ago to some of the young up-and-comers today. I saw it a couple of months ago when Nick Saban just could not fathom that his team lost to A&M. Rather than graciously walk across the field and shake hands with the opposing teams' coach, he decided to lay into the referees for what seemed like an eternity. And I saw it again yesterday, when Belicheck stubbornly refused to give the media anything during the post-game media time. Now, to be fair, Belicheck always acts like that. But when he loses, it's ridiculous.

I think it's fine that we tell our kids that we should win and lose graciously. But we cannot expect too much from them if they don't see it on TV . . . or if they don't see it from us.