Competing

If you have ever seen the movie Grown-ups with Adam Sandler (it’s an ok flick), you will remember how it ends. Adam Sandler purposely, misses a basketball shot, so his childhood archrival can win the game and to teach his son a lesson about building character or something unimportant . I said to my wife the other day, there is no way on God’s green earth that I would purposely miss that shot. I also told her what I would be trying to teach my kids, in the same situation is that we work hard, we do our best, and if that means we win 100 out of 100 times, so be it.


I asked a few of my friends what they would do in the same situation, one said it would be ‘hard to take a dive’ another said ‘you and me are way too competitive to try to lose’ and my friend Jeff said, “That’s a good movie.” Jeff is as sharp as a tack isn’t he?

My hate of losing, is it due to a lack of confidence in my abilities? I would say not anymore, quite possibly when I was younger. When I play sports, I have a difficult time balancing team success with personal success. Obviously, winning is everything  (as long as you do it fairly). I want the team to win but I also don’t want to stink the place up with my performance.

When a person realizes they are hurting the team’s chances of obtaining their goal it takes a certain amount of confidence to say ‘today I am not good enough.’ I have done this, but it was probably more out of frustration in my own performance. Am I a true team player? No I guess not. It’s a struggle for me as my competitive nature drives me to want to succeed and I can’t succeed if I am not on the field. So what’s more important, team or individual success? Of course team success (but I also want to do well and get my fair share of playing time). In the book Five Dysfunctions of a Team, the author talks about sacrificing the individual accomplishments for the greater good of the team.

If you asked me, “Mitch would you rather be a major contributing factor to a softball team that doesn’t win a game all season or sit the bench on a team that goes to the national tournament?” If I gave my team the best chance to win by sitting the bench, I would do it but I wouldn’t like it. I’m not sure I would want to continue to be on that team. I didn’t sign up to ride the bench all season. It’s a fine line on being selfish and a team’s best interest. I played on a team where we didn’t win a game all season and that was probably the most fun I’ve ever had playing softball.

The competitiveness is written into the Davide genetic code. This couldn’t have been more obvious to me than at Christmas. My wife and kids, my folks, and my sister, her husband and two kids were playing Christmas Bingo. We started off laughing and joking and having a good time with it. As people started to win, you could see the focus, drive and competitive nature between my dad, my sister and I tighten. Each time my wife called out a spot on the bingo board (G candy cane) the air thickened with anticipation, the tension became greater. The kids kept right on talking away, having fun as they see each other once every two years. Not the three of us. My wife asked me to get our baby a snack but of course I said no as this game was important. We put down our chex mix, our bottles of Mountain Dew, our caramel corn hoping we would be the one to win that coveted $0.50 notebook that had a picture of a unicorn on the front out of the prize basket. Man, do I love unicorns.

Jody calls out O Santa. My nephew Sam yells out “Merry Christmas” (we say that instead of Bingo). I swear louder then I wanted and Sam asks me why I cussed when he won. I told him that I was glad that he won and didn’t swear because I didn’t want him to win. I thought of explaining to him how competing is written into our blood and as he gets older he will be the same way. I chose not to though because it was after all, Christmas.

I watch to see what Sam takes out of the prize basket. I thought about hiding the notebook cuz I love me some unicorns. Sam takes a king size candy bar, Kit-Kat, I’m not too happy about that either as that is my favorite. But at least the note book is still in the mix.

As Jody calls out the first letter ‘B stocking’ I look down and see the unicorn notebook hoping that I can win it. The game continues and I keep checking everyone’s card.

Each one Jody calls I have, I am on freaking fire and I’m now one spot away from winning, I just need N Christmas tree. My sister has one spot open as well. I can’t quite see what it is as she’s hiding her card from me. I tell my wife to hurry it along and she pays no attention to the statement. She calls out N Christmas tree and I’m the only one who says Merry Christmas. I take the notebook and see my daughter Kendra is sad because she hasn’t won yet.

Here’s my dilemma, I could:

A. give her the notebook

B. tell her to toughen up and keep playing

Decisions, decisions, decisions. I hand the notebook to Kendra who says, “Thanks Daddy” and gives me a big hug. As I hug her back, I think of what I just learned from my six year old daughter. I say to her, “No Kendra, thank you”

Inspirational video

I watched this today.  It was awesome....talk about a selfless act and making some kids feel good.  Please watch

http://www.godvine.com/An-Unforgettable-Football-Game-Gives-Hope-279.html