One thing that is not taught at school, especially to boys, and which perhaps would be most helpful, is that the way to a lady’s heart is not found by winning sporting matches!
In our macho world as young boys, we tend to believe that the girls will be impressed by our sporting ability, that we scored the vital try, that we kicked the decisive penalty, that we thrashed our rivals, that we won the trophy – the girls cannot but be impressed… surely?
The wonderful light-hearted sporting film called ‘A Knight’s Tale’ would seem to put such a notion to bed when our young jousting hero proudly asserts to the beautiful princess that he will show his unbounding love for her by winning the tournament for her, confident that such a promise will sweep her off her feet and land her in his arms forever.
To his great surprise and disbelief, she is not impressed; indeed, she goes further and declares that if he does love her then he must lose. Lose?
In fact, there are a lot of things about young ladies that young boys fail to understand, much of which would probably take a child’s whole schooling experience to try to fathom, but that is for another day.
For the moment, let us consider further this concept of losing. In a previous article, we reflected on how Harold Abraham’s girlfriend responded beautifully and powerfully to his manly statement that “If I can’t win, I won’t run” by reminding him that “If you don’t run, you can’t win!”
Once again, it might appear that in any argument with a woman, a man cannot win but let us move on swiftly!
Here, the lady’s positive but still conditional statement is that “if you love me, lose”.
Unsurprisingly, our young hero is bemused by such an instruction, unable to understand how losing proves anything.
Come on, who wants to lose? What is so great about losing? And what has loving got to do with losing? Let us leave aside for a moment the pure coincidence that the score ‘love’ in tennis means we are losing and look a little more at losing.
Losing can be hard, even bad, sure, if what we lose is self-respect (and respect for others), or if we lose confidence, patience, peace, time or even joy. No, we do not want to lose such. But losing a sporting fixture that in the bigger picture means very little…?
What the beautiful princess underlines, which all boys (and girls) need to learn at school, is that losing helps us to understand what is actually important in life, that sport is not the be all and end all of life, even more so that winning is not the be all and end all of sport or life (even when it is our career – after all, if we lose when it is our career, then maybe we are in the wrong career).
Losing shows us what is important in life; losing shows us how we need to handle situations, not least disappointment.
Losing the love of the princess was harder to take than the thrill of winning.
How losing helps us in loving is that it helps us to lose our ego; after all, love means putting others first. It shows what (or who) is really important. It is only when we learn to put others first that we truly find love. And is love not what everyone wants?
If we love sport, as should be the goal of any coach, then we need to be prepared, even willing, to lose as it will only make us better as a player, coach and, more importantly, as a person. It will humble us, and in so doing will raise us up higher in people’s estimations, affections, respect and – yes, wait for it - love.
Our young hero in his confusion could well have been tempted to quote Shakespeare (maybe that might have won the heart of the lady more convincingly) when Hamlet was similarly confused and bemused by his mother’s swift transfer of love to her brother-in-law after her husband’s death when he muttered, “Frailty, thy name is woman”.
While men might come up with other words to describe women, it is perhaps closer to the truth that “Frailty, your name is man”, if he thinks that it is winning in sport that he will win in love. Indeed, we might add that “Frailty, your name is sport” for it holds out promises that cannot be fulfilled. We must not deceived or confused.
Wake up, young men (and women – and coaches)! Learn from sport (and from women). Losing shows us what loving means and loving shows us what losing means.
The two are well connected. Stop whining when winning stops.
Learn where our true love should lie. After all, what will it profit us if we win the world (cup) but lose our soul, our love, our life, our all? Ask the lady – she will tell you.