The Losers

I remember looking at the seniors when I was a freshman thinking I'll be there someday. They were cool, and not just because they won games. It was the way they talked to each other, how they had each others back. It wasn't just in the way they communicated on the field it was how they partied afterwards. I wished I could be them.

Three and a half years later and I was. Except for one thing. In my senior year we hadn't won a single game. Not even close. I had to transition from playing center-mid to goal keep. I wouldn't say I was awful per se' but, it was a new position after playing a different one for three years.

Wattson Thaowan was our goal keep the previous year and he had graduated. I did a little bit of work with him, and we held out hope as a team that Edgar Newman would be the goal keep. His father got a new job two counties over though and we lost Edgar.

I don't want to make it seem like we were a good team otherwise. We weren't. Sure we tried hard, and we practiced hard. But when it came to playing other teams our communication fell completely apart and scoring goals just wasn't our thing.

Twice we almost had a goal on self because Zach Bryant decided to shovel the ball back to me without saying anything first, or even looking at me. He was a freshman and god awful at the sport. Loveable guy off the field but I swear I could've hit him and not felt bad at all.

You might be asking yourself why a freshman was on the lineup for the team? Football (Soccer in a America) had fallen off as a popular thing to do. After that group of seniors I envied graduated people started to get interested in other things. As they did the amount of people at tryouts gradually dried up.

We went from winning every team to losing a few here and there my Sophomore year. My Junior year Wattson kept it together for the most part but we lost way more than we won. My senior year we barely had enough people to support a team. We could afford two subs at any one time. Which meant for me, that I was going to play a full game, every game.

The one time that I asked Coach Henson if I could play center-mid just to get some points on the board with our forward he shook his head. He needed me to stop the ball because our defense broke down too easily.

You might think that losing over and over again would negatively effect me. Sure, there was some impacts that it ended up having. Like for one, no college scouts were interested in anyone from our school. Another thing was that football died two years later at that school, not to be revived again until three years after I graduated college.

But to say that I didn't learn anything from the experience is also false, here's three things I learned from my team of losers. Maybe these lessons can help you too.

You can't fill anyone's cleats

You really can't. Stanley, Bryan and Tim. The three people that made up the core of Crestview Football when I was a freshman. I wanted what they had, I wanted to be the cool kid(s). I wanted to have the chemistry that movies are made of and that make people rise up in their seats when they see an excellent assist into a goal.

First off, Stanley was a forward, Bryan and Tim alternated between center mid and crossing guard. They scored goals because that was their job. It was impossible for me in my senior year to do that. I had to block goals. Stop someone else's dreams.

Not to be overly dramatic or anything. And I don't think that my desire to be them made us lose games, but it set myself up for a disappointment that I didn't know was there.

We are told over and over again not to compare ourselves with anyone. And we know that, we know not to do a direct comparison, but wanting to lead a team to victory just like Stanley did? Yeah, that's just as bad. I didn't realize the pressure it put on me, or the team.

The idea that we have that pushes us to do great shouldn't be to fill anyone's cleats but our own. Why? Because no one else sweats our sweat. Your shin guards have your own unique stench. And maybe that sweat isn't enough to win a game, but it might be enough to stop a ball. It might be enough to get a possession. It might be enough to score a point. Which leads me to the next thing that I learned.

Your life isn't a movie

Wow. Okay John, duh. We know that. Yeah, but in my senior year of high school I didn't act like it. I wanted to be in a movie. Now I didn't say that of course that would've been weird. What I did say to myself was, when I win this next game the crowd is gonna go nuts. What I did say was, I'll show them.

What I did was fantasize myself winning over and over again. Power of positive thinking you know? The problem when you do that is, if you fail you ruin a part of yourself that thought you were capable of anything. And wow, you might be capable of anything but, football is a team sport - and you can't force a win that doesn't exist.

I don't want to sound fatalistic as I write this. I think there are plenty of things that you can change about your daily life, and you certainly shouldn't give up on them, but living your life with the expectancy that it's going to change in one moment, after one victory, or a montage of moments is ridiculous.

Think about it for a second. Every sports movie. Every single one. You watch the team escalate to the championship round. Usually they win but sometimes they don't. That's not the point. Think about all of the teams that don't make it to the championship. Think about all of the teams that were meant for someone else's character development. It's nice to think of yourself as the hero, but most likely we are the character development for someone else.

That doesn't make life less meaningful by the way. If it saddens you that's okay, but it means that you've probably built your life on a version of yourself that doesn't exist.

John, that's still kind of depressing. Okay, okay, I know it's not everyone's cup of tea, but I also learned one other thing.

Football is fun

That might not sound like a life lesson. I get it. But what I mean is this. I still go out and play. I have fun, I kick the ball around, I play random pickup games at the YMCA. Sometimes indoor, sometimes outdoors. I sweat, I play, and I have fun.

Do I lose? All the time. But I haven't built my entire identity around winning so it doesn't ruin me.

Stanley is playing for a semi-pro team and soccer has become a job for him. I don't want to make it sound like he doesn't enjoy it, but I know he doesn't enjoy it as much as I do. There might be moments, and when he wins I think there's a euphoria that captures him in a way it can't for me. But it's his job more or less.

Tim coaches a high school team in southern Indiana. They're pretty good, but he doesn't play anymore. He doesn't enjoy football the way that I do either. He hates when his team loses, and he thinks that it might be the way that he coaches. I've seen them play. They're just bad. Like us. They'll be fine.

Bryan played a little in college but broke his leg in three different places in a car accident. He watches football on t.v. he could play now that he's recovered but he won't. He doesn't enjoy football like I do.

The point is this though. I talk to all of them on a decently regular basis. We were in the same small hometown so it didn't matter that we didn't graduate together. You know what though? They don't talk to each other. No particular reason. They didn't have a falling out, they just went their own separate ways. They don't enjoy football like I do anymore either.

You know who does enjoy football like me? Zach. He and I play in some pickup games. And we have fun. Win or lose we have fun.

Now at this point some may say that they have fun winning. And that's great, you should have fun, but it's also important to have fun losing. Why? Because football is fun. Sure it's a competition and it's a sport that people go absolutely nuts about.

It's also possible to read this and think that I've got a defeatist mentality that seems okay with mediocrity. That's not it either. I'm just not that good at football. And that's okay! Because I have fun. Life's not all about fun and games, and it's not all about smiling when things are down. I get that, believe me I do. But if you can't have fun with the things that are supposed to be, then what the heck are you doing?

"Our job is to make every other team have at least one win this year" - Mr. Henson, my coach in senior year of high school. He said it with a smile.