Humble in Victory; Gracious in Defeat

With a disappointing loss in the rear view mirror, I have been thinking a lot about sports, winning, losing, and how to keep it all in perspective for my son.

Sports have always played a role in my life. Not only was I born into a family of Boston sports fans, but I have participated in competitive sports and activities since I was 6 years old. After my first figure skating competition (where I came in last place), I locked myself in the bathroom, cried for an hour and promised to never take the ice again. It was a tough pill to swallow at a young age. A couple of years later, I was back on the rink's center stage and won a silver medal. I continued to compete for many years and I value many of the lessons I took away from those experiences – the main one being that it’s ok to lose. The sun will still rise the next day and the people who love you will still be by your side!

Now that I have a child of my own, I plan to encourage him to take risks and try out all sorts of things – baseball, piano, cooking, tap dancing, swimming...whatever his little heart desires. The problem is, the more risks you take, the more chances you have to lose or fail.

In my twenties, I taught adults and children to learn to skate. The first thing we did was practice falling. It is inevitable that you will fall when you are skating, and boy does it hurt if you attempt to fight gravity. To get over that psychological hump and to hopefully avoid major injury, it’s really important to accept and embrace the reality of falling down. It was pretty amazing to see the different reactions I got from children and adults. The little ones thought it was a blast and became really good at it. The adults were absolutely petrified to hurl themselves downward even though they were in total control of the fall.

I guess you can never start the dialogue about winning and losing too soon. Since our culture places such a high value on winning and since I like to follow a few teams, I guess we should start now. After all, he has already been to Fort Myers for spring training and has already experienced both hockey and football playoff action.

More than anything, I want my son to think about how his actions affect himself and other people. In success or defeat, I just want him to be kind to others and to positively acknowledge the effort and skill that went into the game or competition. If his favorite team loses in game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals, I hope to hear him congratulate a fan of the team who won the title. If that happens, then I will definitely feel victorious.