The Loser Label

4-24-89

Perspective:

The Loser Label

It was a pretty good week for Cobber sports, but not in the ways we are used to. You had to look for deeper reasons to call it a good week, because almost everyone suffered defeat.

Teams here had to find ways to carry on while wearing the dreaded label of "losers". In fact, for all of the exaltation of our "winners", a lot of Concordia athletes this year have had to cope with a lot of losing. It's been that kind of a year.

Coaches and players know the right words to say to those who lose. "We'll get 'em next time." "We'll learn from this." "It's not the final score that counts, it's whether you gave it your best effort." "The joy is not in the winning, it's in the striving." And so on.

Athletes know these lines because, in the zero-sum world of athletics, half the teams are losers on any given day. The key is whether you can believe the lines.

A few months after the Lady Cobber basketball team won the national championship in 1988 a call came in from someone who works with the college's public relations office. The caller wanted a list of all the banquets and awards that came to the Lady Cobbers in the wake of their championship to show what a caring community Concordia is. The caller should have talked to one of the Cobber teams that came in last or next-to-last in their conference race. See how they get treated and you would have a much better idea of how caring the community is.

As a society we loath our "losers". They are held up as examples of sloth. We find countless traits in their character to explain their failure. To call someone a "loser" is to end the discussion. Nothing more needs to be said. "The guy's a loser." He might as well be dead.

We extend the win-lose motif now to all we encounter.

Fifty million people voted for Mike Dukakis to be president of the U.S. and he's a "loser." Retarded people and abused women wandering the streets are "losers". Just not clever or persistent enough to "make it", we reason. Not like us, society's winners. We feel a warm glow of pride in our superiority over the "losers." It's important for us "winners" to denigrate the character of "losers" and find reasons for their failure. Otherwise we have to face the possibility that "there, but for the grace of God, go I." Such a thought makes our current lofty status seem too "iffy".

Running down the "losers" among us can get chilly.

Losers are said to make excuses for their failures by blaming bad breaks and injuries. Losers don't work as hard, aren't as dedicated to success, and probably aren't as bright. Losers are gutless, lazy and afraid of success. Losers may even be a bit out of God's favor.

But consider this. Concordia's football team was 9-2 last fall and was clearly full of winners. This spring's losing baseball team is filled with a lot of players from that same football team. Did those players somehow lose their winning character traits over the winter? Or take the losing Cobber softball team. It's having a heck of a time getting opposing batters out. It also has large contingent of Lady Cobber basketball players who just finished going 24-3. Have they somehow become lazy and fallen from God's favor, all in just a few weeks? Assessing winning and losing as a morality play, or some endless character test, can make for fun theater. But is usually pretty silly.

These pages are maintained by Jerry Pyle pyle@cord.edu. These articles are copyrighted © and may not be published or reproduced without the express permission of Jerry Pyle.

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