The Strange Nature of Sport and Its Relevance to You

There are a lot of people out there who don’t enjoy sport. Some people don’t play them, others don’t even watch them. Fair enough; sport, as with anything else, is an interest that not everyone has to enjoy to be a decent human being. All the same, there is a very good lesson to be taken from sport that I think bears noting, and it’s not one of the obvious ones (i.e., athleticism, teamwork).

Consider winning a title or breaking records. You celebrate that winner’s skill and prowess and dedication to their sport, you note their talent… and you silently downplay the countless stream of circumstances that brought them onto that podium.

It’s something all athletes acknowledge on some level or another, and it’s something all athletes acknowledge as being part of sport in general. So… what IS it?

Consider the story of Roger Federer and how he won the Grand Slam title (winning the four Slam events in tennis: Australian/US/French Open + Wimbledon) not too long ago. That 16th Grand Slam title, the one that would break all the records, had been dodging him for quite a number of seasons, and for what was perceived to be a single reason: Rafael Nadal, whose skill on clay courts always took the French Open away from Federer’s quest for the Grand Slam.

2009, the year Federer took the Grand Slam? Nadal was not playing due to an injury.

I turn your attention to swimming, to a certain individual named Michael Phelps, specifically to his winning the 200M Butterfly event during the 2008 Beijing Olympics and setting a new world record of 1:52:03 (he has since broken that record). His next-best challenger that year? Nick D’Arcy, whose times were on par with Phelps’ prior to the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Nick D’Arcy was suspended from the Australian swimming team for being a big silly goose and therefore did not compete in the Olympics.

I mention these two examples of many, many more not to take away from Federer’s or Phelps’ incredible achievements; I respect them highly and am in complete awe of all they have managed to achieve. I do recognize that the absence of Nadal and D’Arcy are by no means the singular cause for Federer and Phelps’ wins, but it would be naive to think they didn’t eliminate a large part of the roadblock. My intention is to simply put into perspective something that sport teaches us all.

It’s humbling and it’s a bit painful, but it is essentially the acceptance that your chances of success or failure can be heavily impacted by circumstances beyond your personal control… and that these circumstances should not take away from your victories or weigh down your defeats.

This is a lesson about control and variables. You cannot control everything. From questionable umpire/referee calls to injuries, these are variables that you accept as “part of the game.” All you can do, generally, is accept them and continue to push yourself.

Yes, that umpire made a bad call in the last 3 minutes of a tied game, but you cannot change that. You play on and you make the most of those 3 minutes. The momentum falling if the call was against your team and you’re pissed about it? Part of the game. It sounds harsh, but consider that sport goes on. You don’t play one game and that’s it. Every so often, you’ll get a bad call made against you and every so often, you’ll get a bad call made in your favor. That’s how it works. What it comes down to is whether or not you’re lucky enough for a bad call to be made in your favor in the last three minutes of a tied game during the Grand Final or Championship.

If you’re one of those people who insists that umpires or referees are paid off to favor a certain team then you just keep on keeping on.

Ultimately, it’s luck. It’s good weather on an archery range or bad weather if you know your team is better playing in rain than the other team is. It’s an injury or a suspension. It ultimately comes down to so many things beyond your control that there’s almost no point letting it impact your game.

Therein lies the lesson. No matter the circumstances, you give it your all, every time, doing your damnedest to be the best you can be. That’s what sport is. Victory can be truer if all things were equal and there were none of these niggling things to whisper in the back of your head as you step up to receive your gold medal, but that’s not how the world works.

Yes, you play to win. You have to be hungry for the win, but not for the winning. For the proof that you were, in that moment, the best. Yesterday, owing to another set of circumstances, someone else was the best. Tomorrow, owing to yet another set of circumstances, someone else may be the best. But right here, in this moment, you are the best. Your record may be broken tomorrow, but the point stands that you broke this record today. That’s what you go for. Damn the naysayers who just drag in things beyond your control to bring you down. Wanted to be the best by beating the best but didn’t get the chance because your rival didn’t play? Screw it. You were the best when it mattered. That’s the point.

How do you apply this to your daily life outside sport? Don’t let a defeat crush you and enjoy every damned victory life hands you. What happens is 95% down to you and your effort and your dedication and your perseverance. Keep on playing, keep on going. That 5%, perhaps the 5% that makes all the difference in the world… that’s luck, that’s the millions of little things that lead up to the point in time when it all comes together and either gives you a boost or bites you in the ass… and there’s no point beating yourself up about it or letting it bring you down. It’s part of the game, and all the players on the field or on the court know it, even if none of them will every say it aloud.