“You lost today kid, but that doesn’t mean you have to like it.” – Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

I hate losing. Hate it with every fiber of my being. I have pushed myself much further than I thought possible (or probably should have, given the circumstances at times. Hello church softball league…) to prevent a loss. There’s nothing, athletically at least, that bothers me more than coming out on the losing end of a contest. Let me put this another way. I HATE losing.

Unfortunately, I’ve had to learn how to deal with that emotion more than I would like. Growing up, I played on some great youth baseball teams. I also played for a few lousy teams. In high school, we compiled a combined 11-19 record during my three years as a varsity football player. That was really tough. We also narrowly missed winning the TCAC (for our younger readers, that’s the league Warren teams played in before Regions came along) track title two straight years before winning it my senior year.

Looking back, I’m grateful to have been on some of those tough luck teams. Primarily because the coaches taught us how to handle losing. None of us were particularly thrilled about losing a game; however, those coaches taught us to work through whatever it was that caused that specific loss as a team.

Sometimes we made a mistake at a critical time. Sometimes we didn’t play well. Then there were times when the other team was just better. Those always hurt the most. The coaches allowed us to be upset, frustrated or withdrawn in the immediate aftermath of the game, provided those feelings didn’t linger. What they wouldn’t tolerate, ever, was one of us lashing out at our opponents or teammates.

I’ve been involved in sports in some capacity for nearly my entire life. I’ve played in, coached, officiated or covered more sporting events than I could possibly count. Far too often I’ve seen players, coaches and/or parents/fans react to a loss in ways usually reserved for times when I tell my 2-year-old she has to put her toys away.

Throwing equipment, berating teammates, verbally abusing officials and, a handful of times, physically attacking opponents are all things I’ve witnessed from teams that hadn’t learned one of sports, and life’s, most valuable lessons. Losing sucks, but it’s one of the best ways to learn where you need to get better. It’s hard to apply that information if you’re too busy blaming the outcome on others.

I want to say thank you to all those coaches who helped me learn how to lose. It wasn’t always a smooth process, but it helped me become a better person. No one has to like losing, I certainly don’t, but they should learn from it. And the first lesson is learning how to lose.