On Learning How to Lose

and remembered that winning kinda sucks, too

My family has never been part of competitive things. Barring some elementary and junior high cheerleading, my sisters and I never participated in sports. Neither did my parents. Growing up, we watched Wimbledon, the Olympics, the Kentucky Derby, and the Masters, but I think that’s just cause that’s what my mother and grandmother knew. What they’d always done. It wasn’t about picking a side. It was just about cheering whoever was winning. Celebrating what the human/animal body can do when it sets its mind to it.

My husband watches a mild amount of sports. Formula One, football, golf, basketball, in that order of importance. I usually don’t pay attention much. However, during the Western Conference Championship, I started following along, and by the time the Spurs faced OKC, I was all in, cheering their every win and mocking the fanatical flopping with the best of them. So watching the NBA Finals this year was my first-ever dose of sports disappointment, and I could see a glimpse of how losing can make you react in a not-so-positive way. In the Knicks case, losing meant running around, beating people up, trashing their own parks, lighting Spurs jerseys on fire, and putting a kid in a coma. But from the Knicks’ wins, I see also that, for them, winning entails trashing cars, flipping over taxis, throwing eggs at the losing team, and causing all sorts of mayhem. Boys will be boys, I guess.

So, it ends up, I don’t really like what losing feels like. Or winning for that matter. I remember when my son was in first grade, he won a Pinewood Derby, and I remember my ego grew ten sizes that day. Winning left me with a bloated, icky feeling in my chest. Even though pinewood derby races are built on luck, chance, and happenstance. It was my one and only taste of how overreactive parents feel watching their children glow on a ball field. Winning is a lift, a boost to your parental ego. The payoff for all the time and money you invested in your child. For some families, that sort of work-towards-a-winning-goal seems, from afar, to build character and camaraderie. Does it? For mine, this series started out as a fun way to bring my family together and ended with us temporarily swapping hurtful memes with my sister in New York, and a back-and-forth lording that felt more like one-upmanship than friendly competition.

As much as sports can be a grand thing (see video of NYC last night), it can also bring out the worst in people (see video of NYC last night). As much as sports can bring a large or small selective group together (by city, zip code, country, or social status), it pushes other communities away from each other. US vs. THEM.

For every winner, there’s a loser.

I know this makes me sound like a tree-hugging, every-kid-should-get-a-trophy, pathetic loser weenie to some people, but that’s probably because I am all those things. Now, is this rant just sour grapes from a sports rookie who’s finally tasted what the Wild World of Sports refers to as the “agony of defeat”? Maybe, but that’s my point. I don’t know that the brief thrill of feeling exalted over the success of a group of hardworking rich men I’m vaguely associated with by area code is worth the pit in my stomach when they lose. Not to mention the obsessive hours spent scrolling news articles, highlight clips, and gossip. (Do I need another hobby?)

Yesterday, before the game, I spent the morning in the countryside outside of Austin at a class where I learned about the art of Indigo and the language of resistance. There was peace, hope, history, flowers, and beauty. There was joy in trying new things and meeting new people. I dyed my Spurs shirt in hopes that it would bring draw the positive force of the Indigo plant and the day into the game. (FYI, it didn’t.) And after the agony of last night, I’ve decided I’d rather turn my hands blue as I dye clothes in the grass singing Middle Eastern folks songs with a bunch of women, than cheer for talented strangers driven by a competitive passion that makes me uneasy and a game that I’ll never fully understand. Give me art, books, music, movies, and Mother Nature any day over watching men I don’t know play games over gobs of cash I’ll never see myself. But, to each his own.

That said, am I glad Spike Lee got to see the Knicks win a championship after sitting shiva for almost half a century? Of course! Every diehard fan of anything deserves that. Am I thrilled for New York City, the land where I spent ten fabulous years and met the love of my life? Absolutely! (Make sure you check out Gia Kourlas’ great joy-filled feature on spontaneous, celebratory dancing.) Do I wish Jalen, his dad, and the rest of the Knicks all the best? For sure! And will I be watching when the Spurs become the NBA Champs next year? Hell yes, I will.

Only next time, I’ll try not to take it personally. (GSG!)