Winners and quitters

We all know the Friday Night Lights Syndrome -- people who make high school sports far more important than they should be, sending all the wrong messages to the kids and royally screwing up the education process. This seems to be the flip side of the coin, a school board that says, well, we can't win, so forget about it:

OSCODA, Mich. - Oscoda Area High School's football team hasn't won a game, or even scored a point, in four games this season. Now the school district has decided to cancel the remaining games.

Despite pleas from players and parents, the board in the small northern Michigan district recently upheld the school's earlier decision to end the season, saying players risked injury in trying to take on much stronger opponents.

Competition is the engine that has driven progress since the world began, and we learn as much about life from losing as from winning, so our first reaction (or at least mine) to this story is that the school board is teaching all the wrong lessons to these kids: If you can't win, just give up. Never mind how you personally might improve, just watch the scoreboard. We can imagine some of these players spending their whole lives looking back on this moment as a turning point of the wrong kind.

That's certainly the attitude of this commentator, who goes just a little bit over the top:

No. I think we all need a little more Kyle Tobin in our lives.

Struggling at your job? Resign!

Marriage on the rocks? See ya!

Enemy has just out-flanked you? That's why God created white flags!

See?

If you don't quit when you stink at football, how will you ever be able to quit when you stink at life?

Lance Armstrong? Sucker.

John Wooden? Loser.

Adam Taliaferro? Punk.

Fighting through adversity is soooo five years ago. Surrender is the new victory! Cowards are the new heroes!

But most of the examples alluded to are cases in which either, 1) There is some realistic chance of achieving a goal or, 2) The goal is worth the risk of continued striving. He could have also mentioned Abraham Lincoln and all those elections he lost before he won the first one.

But the goal of these players was probably not to actually WIN a game -- the collective score through the first four games was: Opponents 164, Oscoda 0. What was the best the team could have hoped for in the remaining games? To perhaps score one touchdown or one field goal, not getting shut out for the whole season, while managing not to get a player or two sent to the hospital?

If one important lesson in life is to never give in when it matters, to give it your all in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds, another one is to know when it DOESN'T matter, when it's time to move on and choose a different battle. Learning that you should keep beating your head against the wall for no good reason is just as bad as learning to stop testing yourself when the odds become too great. We can't always be sure when it matters and when it doesn't, but this seems to be a pretty clear case.

Shouldn't the kids be allowed to just keep playing anyway, for the fun of the game? No, knowing you will never win is no fun. What about trying to get them in a different conference so they have a better chance of winning? But what would that say about competition -- winning is important, so make sure you pick weak opponents? Even those who lament the passing of one-class basketball in Indiana (and I have been one of them) do so because there IS a chance of a Milan coming along and beating the odds. The basketball players in the small schools even in losing feel better for having tried at something that can be achieved, however great the odds (at little risk of getting maimed in the process).

I read an interview with Bobby Knight once in which he explained that he was so tough on his kids because he was trying to give them what they needed when they went out into the real world. He sounded like some Army drill instructor who put recruits through hell so they wouldn't get killed in battle. But he was training, let's be honest, future car salesmen and insurance agents. What about their future careers required them to get cursed out regularly and slapped on the head occasionally?

This turns out not to be the flip side of Friday Night Lights, after all. It's part of the same story. I suspect the coach, who came from a winning program, was feeling a little sorry for himself as much as he was worried about the kids. But I'm not going to beat up on the school board.