No gloating in loss

I’ve seen a few games where one guy has a career night and puts up unbelievable numbers. In baseball a batter might hit for the cycle (single, double, triple and home run), or a pitcher throws a no-hitter or a one hitter and somehow their team ends up losing the game.

In football the QB may throw for five TDs and no interceptions, or a running back runs for over 200 yards and several TDs and the team gets beat on a fluke play at the end of the game.

In basketball a player might have 20 points, 12 rebounds and 10 assists and somehow a late turnover and a desperation three point shot ends in defeat for that person’s team.

You can talk about a lot of team sports where Herculean efforts end in a loss not because of the great effort but sometimes due to the fact that the other team played a bit better as a team.

Heck, it can happen in tennis or golf where a person plays their very best only to have the unthinkable take place and coming up a bit short to the eventual winner.

We’ve all seen the interviews. The interviewer wants the athlete to talk about the unbelievable effort and stats that the player put up and how they felt about it. You can just about bet that the player will say, “It really doesn’t matter because we lost the game!” Or “it is hard to celebrate my accomplishments as an individual when we as a team came up short on the scoreboard.”

On the other side you might see a guy that had several turnovers, missed shots but hit a couple of free throws with little or no time left on the clock; or the kicker that missed a couple of extra points and an easy field goal attempt but hits a game winner as time expires; or the guy that goes 0-4 at the plate but gets an infield hit to knock in the winning run.

Those interviews are a bit different. “I knew that I was having a subpar game and hoped I would have a chance to make a difference and those free throws felt good when they left my hand”; “I tried to drown out all of the noise and just focus on that football and when I hit it the memories of those misses I had earlier were gone”; “I had trouble seeing the ball tonight and I knew that striking out was not an option so I did my best to put the ball in play and that 30 foot nubber down the third base line was just as good as a line drive that hit the fence. It scored the runner from third and we win the game.”

We can all look back on our playing days and remember the best game and the worst game we played. Amazingly the best basketball game I played in high school we lost and the worst game I played we won.

It is easy to celebrate victory but it is difficult to pat yourself on the back and say something stupid like, “If you played as well as I did we would have won by 20!”

At the end of the night you aren’t going to have many friends.

However, if you tell the team after you have a rough game in a win you can easily say, “It’s a good thing you guys showed up tonight because my game wasn’t very good!”

Chances are the guys are going to appreciate your congratulations but recognize your importance to the game and the team.

I believe that all players need to understand being humble and being part of a team. I remember my coach expressing how proud he was of the game I had that night even though we lost, because coaches understand effort and hard work. They also appreciate it when a player keeps their ego in check because the next game could easily go the other way if the right defender shows up to play.

It is important for athletes and parents to keep the gloating in check after a loss. You can be proud of the accomplishments but a team loss is a team loss. And it is important to note that ball players win as a team and they lose as a team otherwise victories may be very hard to come by.