This I Believe
Sports have taught me a lot of
things throughout my life, and I believe that the most important things that
I’ve learned from sports aren’t physical but mental. Playing football instilled
a never give up mentality in me. I learned how to work hard in order to achieve
a desired goal. I also learned leadership skills and how to work with others.
With all that being said I believe that the most important thing that I learned
from playing sports is how to lose.
Now
don’t get me wrong losing SUCKS, and there’s nothing worse than that quiet bus
ride back to school after a road loss. Sports are a good way to learn how to
lose because after a loss there’s no time to mope, you have to go out and work
even harder so you won’t have to experience that feeling again. I’ve heard my
whole life that you learn a lot more from failure than you ever will from
success and I believe that to be true.
The worst loss I’ve experienced was
an entire season. My junior year of high school our football team had one of
the best seasons in long time for the school. No one but us expected that we
were going to be a good team at the beginning of the season. We started off
slower than we would’ve liked and after the first five games we had already
lost two heartbreakers. After that we finally started to put it together and
right in time for conference play. We blew through the conference games with
ease for a showdown with our rival Jack Britt who was undefeated and favored to
win it all. After beating them in a triple overtime game we were on top of the
world feeling that the state championship was ours to take. The next Monday we
were told not to get dressed and to wait in the locker rooms, so everybody
thought that we were about to get our conference championship trophy. When the
coaches arrived in the locker room they didn’t look like men that had just
coached the conference champions but instead like pallbearers. With tears in
their eyes they explained to us that the season was over and that we had to
forfeit all of our wins because our principal changed the grades of one of our
players. Most of the team burst into tears, but I think that I was too shocked
to cry at the moment. I really couldn’t believe that our season was over like
that. The worst part was after a couple of weeks Jack Britt made it to the
championship game.
It’s hard to think of losing in a
positive light while it’s happening but looking back losing our season wasn’t
all bad we became closer as a team and I realized that I can’t take things for
granted. I believe that I learned a lot more from losing that season than
anything I learned while we were winning.
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