Author Alfie Kohn has identified competition as the “No.1 obsession” of contemporary life. The conventional wisdom is that competition is about beating your opponent — in sports and in other areas of life, i.e, academics, business, etc. It requires some people to fail for others to succeed. It is perhaps the biggest cause of controversy, confusion and misunderstan-ding in the world of sport today. And it’s probably the one issue which causes most anxiety and conflict in youth participating in sports and games.
There’s no shortage of savants who argue that the competitive urge is instinctive and ingrained in human nature, and to ignore it is unnatural. “Look,” they say, “whether you like it or not, the world is a competitive place. The sooner our kids learn that hard truth, the better off they’ll be.” On the other hand, there’s a growing minority which believes the competitive urge should be down-played. They argue that competition can create anxiety, damage self-esteem, and prompt cheating and poor sportsmanship.
In the circumstances you can’t blame parents for being confused. Is competition good or bad? A blessing or curse for children? I believe what’s desperately needed is a new awareness about competi-tion, in sports and life. As a freshman in college many years ago, I was introduced to the pessimistic philosophy of Thomas Hobbes (17th century) who believed life is necessarily “nasty, brutish and short”. I also became acquainted with Charles Darwin’s “survival of the fittest” theory of evolution (19th century). These ideas, though I wasn’t smart enough to reject them at the time, offered a narrow and lop-sided view of nature and humanity, one which encouraged competition.
Yet there is another way to view human nature positively, to think about competition in a different light. “To compete” is derived from the Latin word competere, meaning “to seek together”. This suggests cooperation, and a more positive view of competition and human nature. In its essence, competition does not have to be the selfish desire to win at all costs, but about testing our skills and striving for excellence.
I got my first taste of the sporting life, specifically basketball, as a third grader growing up in Compton, California. For more than five years I regularly rode a bus 30 minutes each way to the Long Beach YMCA to practice and play. I well remember the bus ride, worried that the other team won’t show up, and I would have to make the long trek back without getting to play, test my skills and improve my game. We competed wholeheartedly, but never thought that the game was the be-all and end-all of our lives.
Friendship was a strong part of the experience — life-long relationships were forged. Trying to win, putting in our best effort to win was paramount. But losing — though disappointing — did not connote failure. Basketball was then, and remains today (as I run off to the local 24 hour fitness gym to get into a pick-up game) not about domination and defeat, but about meeting and playing together in a challenging, fun way. Competition at its best is camaraderie between teammates, opponents and even officials. It’s about playing and improving your skills. And finally, it’s about being thankful to your opponents — without them there wouldn’t be a game!
Before concluding these thoughts on competition, I’d like to introduce another important, though not necessarily well-known concept. My understanding of this idea goes back to something my college basketball coach wrote in a history of Stanford athletics. My very thoughtful daughter — who died of a cancerous tumor in 2007 — purchased the newly published history while she was a pre-med student at Stanford, and sent it to me for my birthday with more than a dozen notes from former teammates. While leafing through the book, I found an autographed statement about me by my coach, Howie Dallmar, who described me as his “most competitive player”.
While flattered by his comment, I had no idea what it meant at the time. Today several decades later, I’m still struggling to fully grasp its meaning — thinking and reflecting is the sort of thing one does in the over-time period of life — but I have come to believe that a true competitor does everything he or she can to contribute to the team effort towards winning. And if the team loses on Saturday night, she can’t wait to get back on Monday and make every possible effort that history doesn’t repeat itself.
But I also think it means that a true competitor competes against herself to realise her potential — to be the best that she can be — rather than against the other team or opponent. While working with accomplished athletes including eight years with the NBA, I learned that the best players compete against themselves, that if they play close to their best level of ability and still lose — it’s okay, it’s just a game. But if they fail to play their best and the team loses, they experience remorse for letting the team down. In sum, a true competitor strives to be the best player and person he or she can be; plays for the team; and while she wants to win, she believes in the purity of the sport and won’t sacrifice her principles and values.
(Dr. George Selleck is a San Francisco-based advisor to EduSports, Bangalore)