I hope they lose.
Oh, not every game. Not even most of them. But as my wife and I prepare for another season of coaching grade-school basketball — this year it’s fifth grade — I hope our boys lose. Occasionally.
That probably sounds unusual coming from a coach. It probably sounds unusual coming from anybody in any endeavor in our society, when a promise that we “are going to be so sick and tired of winning” is regarded as virtue.
Be it sports or business or politics, it seems the emphasis on winning has increased since my childhood. We live, after all, in an era when “Second place is first loser” and “Nobody remembers who finished second” are considered T-shirt-worthy mantras.
Why, a quick Google search of “sports slogans” comes up with purported gems such as “Winning is a habit, success is a choice” and “Practice winning every day” and “Dedication + Motivation = Success.” Not that there is anything wrong with those. It’s just that, when it comes to fifth-grade basketball, I prefer, “Success is a journey, not a destination.”
We’re talking about 10-year-olds, after all, and there is something inherently self-defeating about measuring yourself in wins and losses at a young age. As Winston Churchill once said, “Success is not final, failure is not fatal; it is the courage to continue that counts.”
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