Soccer league teaches that winning is everything

I remember playing on a sports team in high school. I played rugby and I look back at both practices and games with a fond memory. It was a lot of work. Some days I would go home so tired that I couldn’t get any of my homework done. But at the same time the friendships I made and the experiences are gained still have value for me 6 years later.

My team sucked.

Seriously we were horrible. I have no idea why our coach kept doing it year after year. I played for 5 years (starting in grade 8) and there was only 1 year that we were any good at all. There were games that we were happy to score a single try (a rugby goal). We lost some games more than 40 to nothing.

It didn’t really matter though. It wasn’t important that we were humiliated, it was far more important that we all showed up to practice the next day. It was more important that we were all able to laugh at ourselves and work hard to improve. Because life is not about winning and losing, it is about how you handle victory and defeat; and perhaps more importantly, who you share that victory or defeat with.

An Ottawa football league, league (I’m currently living in the UK so I have to call soccer football) the Gloucester Dragons Recreational Soccer, seems to have missed the point of sports. They have institutionalized a rule that any team that scores more than 5 goals that team will automatically lose. The idea is that this rule will prevent blow outs that would damage a youthful self esteem. The message, however, is clear: if your team sucks you are object of pity and mercy.

Really this teaches a message opposite of what the league wants. It teaches them that winning is the only thing that is important about a game. It teaches them that the score board is important and that they should feel shame if they don’t get points on that board.

This league wants coaches to teach their children to play half assed if they are beating their opponents too easily. They want players from superior teams to play with the wrong foot, take harder shots, or perhaps leave fewer players on the field. If some rugby team in my high school days had done something like that to us, I would have refused to play. I would have found it insulting.

The lesson that the Gloucester league should be trying to instil is the one that I learned: how to accept disappointment with grace and achievement with humility. Instead the lesson they are learning is that winning is the only important part of the game.