Categories
responsibility

Learning from Defeat

Coach Michael Anderson and the girls on his team did too well.

At least according to officials at Arroyo Valley High School in San Bernardino, who suspended him for “running up” the 161 – 2 score.

Here we go again.

Anderson is, alas, apologetic. But there’s nothing morally wrong with winning — or with losing, either — an honest basketball game. No matter what the margin.

And it’s vicious to teach either adults or kids that they should shoot for less than their best. Should kids also be telling their bosses, twenty years down the line, that they’re deliberately doing third-​rate work this month so that less able co-​workers (or competitors) won’t feel so bad?

Bloomington Coach Dale Chung says people should not feel sorry for his team, but for the Arroyo team, which “isn’t learning the game the right way.”

No, coach. To accept responsibility for a bad loss without casting blame, then to work to improve, takes grit, persistence and grace. It’s something we all must learn to do in life. It’s the real magic of sport. And easy wins don’t teach us that. Hard losses do. Why are you communicating the opposite?

If you’re doing very badly at an important task — figure out how to do better. Don’t assume that you should be accorded a fraudulent “better” regardless of actual effort and achievement; don’t chastise winners and call them “unethical” for doing their very best; don’t teach your charges that winners should hobble themselves out of “fairness.”

And if you’re a winner? Don’t apologize.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
general freedom

The Losingest Winner

Can you win too much?

Not if the job is worth doing or the game is worth playing to begin with, and is done honorably and well.

Consider the case of Micah Grimes, the coach of a Texas high school basketball team that beat another team 100 to zero. Covenant School recently fired Coach Grimes for failing to apologize for the massive margin of victory. Covenant School had posted a message on its website expressing regrets over the lopsided scale of the triumph, calling it “shameful and an embarrassment.”

Now, nobody is claiming the Covenant girls smashed the kneecaps of the Dallas Academy girls. The Academy players have a very long losing streak under the belts, and didn’t seem all that traumatized by their huge loss when interviewed about it on ABC News. In fact, they showed some pluck and eagerness to keep improving their game to try to improve their chances. As losers go, they have a winning attitude.

Coach Grimes, on the hand, lost … his job. He stated publicly that his values would not allow him “to apologize for a wide-​margin victory when my girls played with honor and integrity.” Shortly afterward, Covenant School fired him.

The school did wrong. Coach Grimes did right to exhibit that integrity. There isn’t any rule in any sport that says the team that is winning must stop trying to win.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.