Why we need to devalue winning

When people play sports, they want to win. There are certainly benefits to a competitive spirit, especially in sports. The desire to win can motivate individuals to push themselves harder. This is a serious positive. That said, we don't seem willing to acknowledge the negatives of pushing a desire to win.


Sports in America generally overemphasize winning. We take a top-down approach where we want our local teams to win in professional leagues, and Americans to win the gold in the Olympics. Even at levels below these, we look at how to develop such elite athletes. Not everything that helps individuals win is a source of pride. In America, athletes are abandoning all honor and embarrassing our nation. I would rather support a losing team than to support the antics of American athletes.

Again, I don't want to act as though winning has no value, but things get worse when we push winning at a younger age. We have a problem with obesity in this country. One of the best things we can do to address this problem is to embrace athletics as a recreational rather than elitist pursuit. At young ages, I support children trying to win. What I don't support is pushing winning to the point that children who are behind or otherwise struggling to succeed can't enjoy themselves. If we want to develop an interest in living physically active lifestyles, it makes no sense to tie winning directly to enjoyment.

This brings me to my final point. Sports are supposed to be games. Games are supposed to be fun. When you pushing winning as much as we do right now, you keep people from having fun. Winners focus more on how to win than how to have fun. Losers are told that they are not good enough to play. In all honesty, there are no real winners when winning at sports is the depth of American sports interests. We need to ease up, especially in regards to establishing sports interest among children. Keep in mind, however, that easing up is not the same as eliminating victories. We still need to allow the desire to win to motivate individuals to put in the effort to win.