-UCLA Bruins football coach Henry Russell ("Red") Sanders (also attributed to Vince Lombardi)
A simple quote, but I confess, I know it by heart. It may, in fact, be tattooed on my heart. I believed in this statement during my athletic career (undistinguished as it was) and my academic years of study, though I mouthed support of the counterpoint statement "it's not that you won or lost but how you played the game" (sports journalist Grantland Rice). I doubted that anyone could wholeheartedly espouse Rice's philosophy and looked for tears every time a top athlete achieved less than complete victory, less than the gold medal at an Olympic event, for example.
That is why this Olympics has been a true revelation to me. I see snowboarder Gretchen Bleiler fall in her half-pipe runs but give a glowing interview, saying that she threw her toughest trick and so she was happy, regardless of her low finish. Evan Lysacek and Bode Miller gave similar interviews saying that they put down their best performances and would have been happy regardless of the outcome. I admit to feeling cynically unsure that they meant it (after all, they did win medals), but if they were lying then they were darn good actors! Then yesterday in the Denver Post I read an article about women's figure skating. Rachael Flatt's coach, Tom Zakrajsek is quoted as saying " all the top athletes know that the key is not to focus on that (wanting to get a medal and getting on a podium). If you focus on the prize, you're easily distracted." Well - who knew? I must have been living with a lot of distractions.
I shared my exciting discovery with a close friend yesterday and added, "these athletes must be a new generation. Maybe they are all influenced by the snowboarding culture of having fun, shooting for the moon, and not worrying about results." She looked at me strangely and asked if I really thought the athletes had changed or if I was the one who had changed. She noted that perhaps the athletes had been saying it - and meaning it- all along and I just had not been paying attention or had not believed them. A scary thought, to be sure. Hopefully I am learning the right lessons now, in time to teach them to my children, and hopefully I will be convincing enough that my kids will learn this message - competing is about doing your best, practicing hard enough so that your performance is automatic even though variables may interfere. Regardless of how any experience turns out, you own it, and no one can take it away from you.
I am going to turn away from Russell and Lombardi and embrace Baron de Coubertin's message for Olympic athletes, ""The most important thing . . . is not winning but taking part.” Apparently I have lost some of my competitive edge, and that will make every experience a bit richer.
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