The Competitive Edge

When my kids were small we played a lot of games and everyone always played to win. A short time after Ted and I started dating he posed the question “don’t you guys do anything for fun?” I didn’t really get it; play a game just for fun-what’s the point. My mother is in her seventies and to this day she gets mad and goes home if she loses two games of Upwords in a row. We had to put an end to our post Thanksgiving football game because we almost had to carry my sister to the hospital when a rocketing pass hit her in the face. We once had a kick ball game that was so intense the ball ended up deflated by a limb in pursuit of the homerun. The worst family competition though was the year my brother was nearly impaled by a plastic lawn chair over a friendly game of musical chairs. These are true stories, if there is one thing we know how to do in this family it is compete. Some of us are fiercer than others but none of us like losing.

I was thinking about ‘the competitive edge’ on Wednesday as player after player came across the plate in our game against Charleston Southern. I don’t even think it was about the game after a while; it was about each individual player competing within himself. At least that is the way it looked to me. Why swing for the fence when you are ahead by ten runs? Why-because you can-and I’m pretty sure a homerun feels good no matter what the score is. And does the third homerun in a single game feel any less significant than the second? I’m going to say I don’t think so but you will have to ask Rob Kral. I’d be willing to guess that now he is going to be trying to get four homeruns in one game because he, like most of the CofC players, is a competitor. They play to win and not just the game; they want it all, the records, the stats, and the retired jersey.

We once had a youth coach that wouldn’t take the field to accept a second place tournament trophy. While that may be excessive he truly made his players believe they could be more than they were. I remember a night when one of Cole’s early teams lost and his coach was reassuring them and saying it was ok and Cole’s dad pulled him aside and said ‘never get comfortable with losing’. At that moment it made me a little mad but I now realize if you are comfortable with losing you are not competing. I know someone who works for a company that only hires retired baseball players for their sales staff. Why-because they never stop competing.

So, in case you are wondering why the score was 28-9 on Wednesday it is because we have a team of competitors. In reality they probably stopped watching the score after we went ahead in the second and were playing to beat their own records.

We’re packed and heading to Western Carolina tomorrow for another weekend of conference play.

Oh yeah and don’t talk to me about basketball right now because I picked a bunch of non-competitors in my bracket and I’m a little testy.

See you at the field.