I am a man who watches a great many sports on television -- and I play many sports. I have internalized the standard quotations about sports: nice guys finish last, and show me a good loser and I'll show you a loser - -or Leo Durocher’s great comment: show me a good loser and I'll show you a guy I'm looking to trade.
There are a great many quotations about sports and losing, but what about losers. Does anyone ever say anything nice about losers?
Here is a great quotation; "It's not true that nice guys finish last. Nice guys are winners before the game even starts." That says it all. People who are nice are playing the game for the fun of it. They are not playing the game because they must win. In fact, in my case I always feel badly when I am beating someone. I feel sorry for them. They care about winning and I don't really care if I win. I am a nice guy -- and I don't often win -- and in a sense the quote is right: nice guys finish last. Yes, they finish last in the game -- but in the game of life they are always winners -- they are nice guys. Or, as the quote says, they are winners before the game even starts -- and they are winners after the game ends. They are winners in the game of life --or they see life as a game, and the games they play are just games--not cuthroat competitions to prove who is better.
Another quotation says roughly the same thing. "How a man plays the game shows something of his character; how he loses shows all of it." Those who are bitter about losing and complain about losing are hard driving people: people who can't stand to lose -- in games and in life. They are not pleasant people to be around. They are what we call "winners" in life and winners in games, but they are not very nice people. Someone once asked a player what he saw when he looked into the eyes of one of the greatest basketball players of all time, Larry Bird. He said he saw the eyes of an assasin. How a man plays the game shows something of his character; how he looses shows all of his character.
But I am going against the grain. In America winning is everything. More & more we honor winners and virtually ignore the runner up. We don't honor -- or remember -- both contestants. Only winners are honored.
This approach may be good if we are interested in shattering records, this may be progress, but perhaps progress has gone too far. We need to honor losers, to realize that winning isn't everything. Playing well and fairly and hard is everything--and good losers are often the ultimate winners in the game called life.
Copyright © 2004 Henry Morgenstein