“Winners are not as afraid of losing as losers are afraid of winning.”
I played a lot of football and it teaches you some things. The long bus rides home changes you. Coach rarely spoke; he let the silence do its work. Starting as we left the field, hearing the other team cheering, and enduring unto the next morning after we watched the game film. Sometimes those moment are important.
Losing a game you should have won, there’s a certain hurt that can only be explained as a hope lost. Those are the games I remember most. They replayed in my head nonstop: missed blocks, dropped balls, penalties, blown assignments—an endless catalog of guilt that kept us quiet through the next morning during film review. “The eye in the sky never lies,” Coach would say. Then it began: a physical reenactment of everything he had felt from the sideline. By the time it ended, we knew exactly why we had lost: not in one play, not in one mistake, but in the small moments where discipline, belief, and lack of coordination came up short.
It was his eyes that sold the message, the hurt and guilt that came across: the other team wanted it more. It always comes down who wants it more. Coach treated our losses like his personal failures. Talent and skill can be matched. Speed can be caught. Strategy can be beaten. But the desire to win more than your opponent; that matters most. If he couldn’t instill that into us then he had wasted our time.
In a way, what he did to us was unfair: he gave us a lifetime of hope for great success. He did it by making impossible promises, teaching faith, but mostly by keeping his word. And he did it when we had lost over 80 games in a row.
He taught us how to win and it was exhilarating. Then the losses returned with a new anxiety. Was it a fluke? Was it proof that nothing had really changed?
Coach didn’t miss an opportunity, it’s when he did his best work. The decisions we made while processing losses: that’s when we became champions. A winning season and a championship was just the confirmation. He’d say things like,
“Winners are not as afraid of losing as losers are afraid of winning.”
We knew that he was challenging us. Forcing us to decide. Live the easy life of a loser; or a life of sacrifice, long hours, constant self-examination and preparation – the kind that breeds determination and confidence.
None of us knew what the next man was thinking, but Coach could read us like a playbook. When one of us was close to breaking, he would lean in and remind us that every champion is shaped in moments without a scoreboard.
“Winning comes down to recognizing the right moments, and they are never on the field”
Those losses strengthened our resolve, both individually and as a team. The winners stayed, the losers faded away, and the team grew stronger. The weight room had a sign over it: “Those who stay will be champions.” It made sense then as much as it does now.
There is something powerful about joining a team, outworking your opponent, overcoming the odds, and winning something greater than any one of us could have achieved alone. It stays with you. It fuels you when you have nothing left. It reminds you of who you are. Mostly it makes the hard moments like this one, bearable.
In quiet moments, like right now, I still hear him: the cheers, the cries, the whoops, but most of all, the lessons we learned when his eyes did the speaking.
“Remember Gideon. Outnumbered 450 to 1 with only a few hundred men, he trusted God, and they won.”
The lessons are always sharp. No odds are too great.
We have a choice in front of us. That old hurt has returned, I know her smell, and we know her name “a hope lost.”
As for me, I am embracing the long silence – I know what it does.
I’m watching the film, because the reality needs to be met without excuse.
I’m staying and preparing in the place without a scoreboard,
because those are the sacrifices that lead to greatness.
