When winning is everything, it’s sport that loses

It’s got to be the tritest expression in all of sport: “It’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how you play the game.”

A sort of bastardised version of a line of poetry by American sportswriter Grantland Rice many moons ago, it’s nowadays confined to the sort of thing your grandpa would trot out any time your school sport came up over the kitchen table.

You would nod your head of course, say ‘Mhm’, and promptly roll your eyes before getting back to the important stuff – the result!

And yet this week, the expression came back to me – not as a painfully clichéd bromide, but as a gentlemanly, wise, and plainly long-lost philosophy on the experience of playing, and even watching, sport. And perhaps even, dare I say it, of living life.

Winning, more than ever it seems, is everything. It is the motivation, it is the point, and it is the excuse for everything – as long as you win, it doesn’t matter how you get there. Even if you cheat. Even if you abuse. Even if you bring the whole damn thing down around you. Just as long as you win.

We all love a winner, of course we do. And we all love to win. When the Waratahs won the Super Rugby championship last year (the first time they’d won just about anything, ever) it was one of the happiest moments of my life. I remember equally the feeling of exaltant joy as Steve Waugh won back his credibility with a hundred in a day at the SCG.

I remember too the heartbreak when the Tigers were pipped by the Raiders in the ’89 grand final. And Jonny Wilkinson’s drop goal in 2003. Losing can be tremendously painful. There is no second place, really. And there is truly no comparison to the euphoric feeling of glory.

There is also no comparison to the size of the cheques victory brings. No one, of course, remembers who came second. And everybody wants to connect themselves, some way or another, with a victor. And while it would be romantic to think that today’s heedless, headlong rush for wins at any cost comes down to the somewhat noble pursuit of glory – let’s not for a minute fool ourselves that there aren’t more material goals at stake at the same time.

To the victors go the spoils, as they say.

But you know, in the same way that the Twenty20 format is singlehandedly killing the game of cricket (by simultaneously glorifying and rendering humdrum the most exciting part of the game – the six) today’s predominant attitude of ‘win at all costs’ is doing similarly to the experience of sport as a whole. Because like with cricket’s maximums, there is so much more to the sporting life than the moments of victory.

There is struggle, there is heartbreak, there are displays of character and nerve and fortitude, there is tragedy and there is redemption, to name a few – and indeed, it is sport’s more sour moments that give the eventual victory its sweetness. There is no light without the dark.

But who has time for such things anymore? Who can bear to wait for victory, to endure hard times, to suffer injustices? No-one it seems – not when on top of all this hardship we must also bear the label of ‘loser’. We want to be winners! And we want it now! And we want it any old how.

For years, we have been inundated with the message that it’s a binary state. As Springsteen said: “Down here it’s just winners and losers, and don’t get caught on the wrong side of that line.” It’s a premise so instilled and unchecked that we don’t even stop to examine it – not that you either won or lost, but rather that you are either a winner or a loser. That the final score of a game ultimately defines you as a person.

No wonder then that today, the end not only justifies the means, but the meanspirited.

Watching the Cricket World Cup final I was struck – not for the first time, I must be honest – with the conflicting emotions that supporting the Australian team can inspire. I’ve barracked for the Aussies since before I could hold a bat, and have never even considered going for another side.

I mean a) I’m Australian – it’s a given; but b) they were honourable, and they were lovable. Before they were any good – back in the early to mid eighties, I watched avidly as they dodged bouncers and tried merely to survive against Michael Holding and company, only to have the likes of Viv Richards dash off in half an hour or so whatever runs we’d managed to accumulate while fending for our lives.

We were never going to win, but boy did it make you proud to be an Australian, watching them stand up to this band of toughs.

Into the nineties, and out of the fires of defeat is forged a team that refuses to be beaten – and this too was fun to watch, as we were at last able to give a bit of what we’d got! We had the privilege and pleasure of watching some of the greatest players of all time play for our team – all at pretty much the same time. But even this, eventually, became unsatisfying – because our players inevitably became the bully boys. And in their relentless pursuit of victory, they lost the honour and character that had brought them to our hearts in the first place.

Today, we have a team of (world) champions. And a team of millionaires. But also a team of ruthless, reckless ruffians who willingly abuse their competitors to gain an advantage. And as much as I’m dyed in the wool, and as much as I could never go for another team, I don’t want to support them in that behaviour.

Having also witnessed the way the New Zealand players conducted themselves throughout the tournament – with confidence and courage, but also humility and respect (for not only the opposition, but the viewing public, and the game itself) – I can’t help but want to align myself with men like that. Yes, they lost in the end. They got smashed. But the way they played the game throughout the tournament was more worthy of respect and idolisation than simply winning will ever be.

And then of course, just when sportsmanship was beginning to win back some column inches, rugby league did it again – as if it couldn’t stand to start the season without some kind of scandal. The captain of the Bulldogs, James Graham, and a couple of his teammates no less than attacked and intimidated the referee , when a tough call went against them in the dying stages of their match with South Sydney.

Yes it was a decision that ensured they lost the match, and yes it must have been distressing, but it was just a game – and that kind of intimidatory behaviour is simply not OK, even if it had been the grand final, and not merely the grand final rematch.

Forget that (albeit technically) the decision was correct. Forget that it was the captain himself at fault. Forget that his argument was pointless and wouldn’t change a thing. Forget that all a violent outburst could do (and did) was incite the crowd to violence. It was terrible sportsmanship. A terrible example to his players, to Bulldogs supporters, and to young men everywhere. His behaviour, and his subsequent excuse, showed a complete lack of respect for the referee, for his own responsibility as captain, for the reputation of the club – and indeed for anything other than the win, and his own personal sense of justice.

He subsequently justified his explosive tantrum with this: “I suppose when you have invested that much energy trying to get the two points and with a minute and 20 seconds remaining it is taken away from you, sometimes the emotion gets the better of you.” But I for one am sick of seeing inexcusable behaviour explained away as ‘passion’ or ‘the will to win’ or ‘the pride of representing your country’ or just ‘the adrenaline in the veins’. Passion is no excuse. Nor is pride. Nor are hormones.

The sporting world seems every day to be that much more populated by variations on the scrupleless, single-minded bully. But while it’s these kind of traits that so often bring victory, they also alienate us from our would-be heroes. Because for all that it’s glorified, the result is not all that matters.

We look to our sportspeople for so much more than mere victory. They are custodians of sportsmanship, of the gentleman’s code, of gallantry and chivalry, of graciousness, humility, respect and teamwork – and these are the standards they should be held to, and judged by.

Brad Haddin excused his send-offs of New Zealand players in the final by suggesting such abuse helped him play better. Graham implied his actions were warranted because the decision felt unfair to him at the time. And while one won, and one lost, both their attitudes seem to be the same – that all that matters is the result, and not at all the way in which it’s achieved.

But if we – as fans, pundits, commentators and administrators – allow such boorish, aggressive and honourless behaviour in the blind pursuit of victory, we’ll all end up losing – even as the trophies fill the cabinet.