Every time I come away from a youth soccer game whether I am out recruiting for Whitworth or just watching my kids play, I end up shaking my head…and it doesn’t matter the level.   Do you know who cares the most about winning?  Parents!  Who is next on the list?  Coaches….however, the best coaches will always keep losing in perspective.  Who is last?  You guessed it, players.  Ultimately, players just want to play.

Parents just boggle my mind (and remember I am one of “them!”)  We get so caught up in the winning and losing thing and it baffles me as to why.  Maybe we just want our kids to be happy; maybe we want to associate with a winner; maybe we want to be playing instead; maybe we want the medal.  Coaches can certainly fall into a trap with the latter few suggestions—see at a 3v3 tournament in Cheney where a coach (not one of ours ) was kicked out of an 11 year old’s game—yes a 3v3 tournament!  Or, just today, a parent held up a championship game for minutes on end as he would not leave after being ejected from a 14 year old’s game!  Good grief!  As an aside, this was my nephew’s game and he ended up losing on a PK call with less than a minute to go… you know what?  After the game a teammate asked him to come over to go swimming—that’s what was now important:  being able to spend time with a friend.  Oh by the way, the parent that was ejected was from the “winning” team. 

Winning is certainly more fun than losing; unfortunately, we just do not get to experience winning all the time.   As you can deduce, I just came back from a weekend full of games here in the Valley.  Reality is some teams won and some teams lost; even lost big.  I spoke to a group of 10 year old boys after they lost “big”.  You know what?  They all said they had fun…after shaking hands with the opponents they raced over to give all their parents a high five…all with smiles on their faces.  I saw this over and over again from players within our club and outside our club…whether they won or they lost.  They forgot about the losses—and wins--pretty quickly!  It is only us parents and coaches that remember the loss, and this is where it gets messy.   Our role in these cases is to NOT remind them about what they did wrong or how bad it was, but we are to keep that sense of joy that comes from playing.  Reality is, the players want to play; everybody wants to win…but really, the kids just want to play; let’s keep encouraging them to do so!  Parents, that’s your job.  Coaches, we are to teach; evaluate the test (the game) and then teach to make them better.  

Before you think I’m too soft when it comes to winning, I do want to say that I firmly believe in competing to win and I believe in having winners and losers as you can learn from these situations.  Not everybody can get a blue ribbon!  Hence, Abraham Lincoln losing many elections before being elected President and Michael Jordan being cut as a 9th grade basketball player.  Even in these two brief examples, you can see that it is not about the winning, it is about the effort to win.  It is about “getting knocked down and getting back up to try again.”  I am a big Vince Lombardi fan…and am firmly behind his famous quote, which is often misquoted:  “winning isn’t everything; competing to win is”.  Often the last part of the phrase is known as “winning is the only thing”; however, if you read his books, you’ll note it is as I’ve put it.  That is his message behind his success.

As coaches, this is our job—teaching them to compete.  That is easier said than done—competing.  It is much easier to keep to yourself.  As such, you should really be proud of your child for taking the risk of competing as there is a greater chance of experiencing failure (Lincoln lost many times) than “success” (as defined by society most often—wins and losses).   However, if we can continue to teach them that the willingness to compete is the true measure of success, then they will always be winners in this game of life…and that is what we want for our children, isn’t it?

I very much appreciate the positive energy that I see on most of our sidelines and I know your child appreciates it as well.  Keep encouraging them!

Sean