“Beyond Winning: Redefining Our Perspective on Success in Competitive Athletics”
Success can mean different things to many people. Prosperity. Recognition. Contentment. There’s no universal definition. The roads we take in pursuit of success can make us feel like we’re on a never-ending journey. We chase after it, and in our search for understanding we encounter perceptions of what will, and, what won’t make us happy. The problem with our perceptions is their tendencies to mislead us. The ones we hold tightest to can be difficult to rethink, and so we have to be careful, because what we want to believe, and what is, are frequently different things. They say the truth stands alone, yet for a concept as ambiguous as success, it’s rarely so simple. Search long enough and it can be easy to forget what we’re looking for. Become too single-minded in our attempts to capture it and we end up certain of only one thing: that we don’t have it.
In the world of sports, the benchmark for success which most athletes are held to is defined by a simple measure: winning.
There’s an obvious correlation between success and winning in competitive athletics. Gold plaques, medals, and trophies are great, but should they always be viewed as the determining factors for assessing the value of an athlete’s accomplishments? We place such a high precedence on winning, yet the reality most athletes face is that they’re not always in full control of their championship fortunes. This is especially true in team sports, where the talent of a single player might not be enough to win, or, to even reach the big game. The level of competition that a team or athlete encounters is also worth noting. Take the four major professional sports in America: basketball, football, baseball, and hockey. There have been years, and even decades, in each sport when certain teams were almost unbeatable. The 1957-1969 Boston Celtics. The 1991-1998 Chicago Bulls. The 1961-1967 Green Bay Packers. The 1947-1953 New York Yankees. The 1965-1979 Montreal Canadians. It isn’t like there weren’t other successful teams and athletes during these eras. The problems they ran into were simple: sports dynasties.
No matter how hard certain athletes work to be successful, it can still seem like the deck is stacked against them. That’s because it is.
There will always be athletes who are bigger, faster, stronger, and more skilled than their opponents. For others, their roads to success will require them to outwork their peers, often by a considerable margin just to get the same or very similar results. Where an athlete starts and the advantages they’re given rarely tell the whole story about their journey, but they do play a role. The uphill climb many athletes encounter might, at times, feel discouraging, but it can also be rewarding. Some people are better equipped to handle the physical and mental pressures of this truth than others. Attaining success isn’t easy, but if athletes can do things the right way for long enough then there’s a chance the wheel can eventually turn around. They just have to be ready when it does. Sometimes they’ll win because they were better, though once in a while they catch a break, perhaps for no better reason than they were due.
A recipe for athletic success in the 21st century: if at first you don’t succeed…form a super team!
We live in an age when athletes are chasing titles. The super team phenomenon has taken hold in professional sports, and like it or not, it’s here to stay. We see it most frequently in the NBA where, because of unique salary cap rules, superstar players have managed to drastically increase their odds of winning a championship by loading their talents onto the same team. LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosh (2010-2014 Miami Heat). Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, and Kevin Durant (2016-2019 Golden State Warriors). Kyrie Irving, Kevin Durant (again, Kevin?), and James Harden (2020-2022 Brooklyn Nets). Super teams don’t always win championships, but they do create competitive misbalance. They also raise an important question: if a team with multiple superstars can play average and still outcompete 95% of their opponents, should winning still be viewed as the foremost metric for determining their athletic success?
Putting the weight of the world on athletes’ shoulders is unfair. There’s more to their legacies than championships won.
If you think of yourself as a sports fan, then consider the impact athletes have had on you during your lifetime. Did their performances inspire you as an athlete or as a person? Has their legacy advanced the sport you love? Did they make their teammates and coaches better, both on and off the playing field? Fact: if we use a “winning is everything” mentality as the sole criterion for grading an athlete’s accomplishments, then we’re going to miss a lot of things. The critical nature of making assessments this way can be unfortunate, because we often don’t realize the great things we’ve witnessed until the time comes when they’ve passed us by. There are plenty of incredible athletes in every sport who’ve never won a championship. Reggie Miller, Charles Barkley, Karl Malone, and John Stockton. Dan Marino, LaDainian Tomlinson, Barry Sanders, and Bruce Smith. Ernie Banks, Ted Williams, Tony Gwynn, and Ken Griffey Jr. The list goes on. Should we view their careers as being successful? The answer is obvious. In each case, the magnitude of their accomplishments far outweighs the moments when their efforts came up short.
Not all opinions are equal. The ultimate measure of success, both for athletes and everyday people, should be determined by those who they managed to influence the most.
One of the most insightful viewpoints I’ve read about success came from the mother of a childhood friend. As my classmates and I were nearing our high school graduation in the spring of 1998, Sandy Stanley wrote a letter to our local newspaper in Portage, Wisconsin expressing the gratitude she felt for her son, Chris, and many other student athletes who competed in high school sports that year. It’d been a bittersweet year for the school’s athletic program. Multiple teams and individuals had won conference titles, though in the end most of us had fallen short of capturing our final goal: the elusive state championship. When I look back at what Sandy wrote, I have an appreciation for her words that my younger self might not have fully recognized. Her message was intended to remind us that she, and others, in the Portage community would always remember us for the sacrifices we made, as well as the joy and excitement they experienced by watching us compete. I’ll leave you with some excerpts from her letter: “It’s been said success comes from hard work, desire, and determination. Add a little discipline and success is yours…Believing in yourself is essential. Most people do not know what a success they could be if they would only believe in themselves…We can all dwell on the could of, should of, would of in our lives, but that is not the definition of success…I’d like to thank these young men for the wonderful memories. Thank you for being such wonderful role models and being such great inspirations to our community, and future athletes. This makes you all champions.”
Thanks for reading. Take care, everyone!
- Todd
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