I Hate Losing

I play indoor soccer on Sundays for a variety of reasons. One is exercise. Another, stronger reason, is getting to hang out with friends I’ve played with for years. A third reason is so I can do something that doesn’t require me being a writer—my life as a writer has absolutely no bearing on what happens on the field.

Okay, maybe that’s not wholly true. Time once was that no one, including folks on my team, knew what it was I did for a living. That was perfectly fine with me. Being a writer didn’t matter. Then a couple folks found out, and a couple folks who joined the team actually knew who I was. And one guy who was so good he’d pretty much mock me when I was on the field, turned out to be a Star Wars fan. When he found out who I was, he actually lightened up a lot, which made my life much easier.

And one of the refs at the place is an author, too, so maybe, occasionally, I get the benefit of the doubt on a call.

But last Sunday being a writer—as special as some folks think that is—had nothing to do with the game. I was in the goal, and I was getting shelled. The other team had much younger players, all of whom passed well and moved around making defending against them very tough. They were quick, too, so short passes inside meant I had no chance to react. They also hit the posts and crossbar, or drilled shots in while I was being screened. It was just not a good day in the net.

And just when I didn’t think it would get any worse, while my entire team was down in the attacking zone, the other team’s best player popped the ball free off a pass and came sprinting down the field, all alone, one-on-one with me. This guy is young—close to twenty years younger than me—tall, lean, fit. He’s been playing soccer his entire life and has mad skills. He’d already scored twice on me, the last being being a casual flick of the ball with the heel of his trailing leg.

At the very first, I felt doomed. Then something inside me shifted. I’ve written a previous essay on confidence and a hunk of that came back to me. There wasn’t any sugar-coating the reality of the situation: the best player on the field—one of the best players in the place—was coming down on me. Under the best of circumstances no one would expect any goalie to stop him. Now, with me in the net, with the day I’d been having, the chances of me stuffing him would have been put at zip-point-nada.

Or, as it shifted around in my brain, everyone in the place expected me to fail.

I’m not someone who takes failure well. I hate losing. I accept it as reality—an abstract reality I don’t want to be part of. I can be gracious in defeat, but I just hate losing. And what the odds were telling me, what the fact that no one on my team was running back to help was telling me, was that everyone was betting I’d fail.

I do tend to be contrary. If everyone was figuring this little contest was already decided, there wasn’t any reason for me to make the belief unanimous. Where’s the fun in that? There isn’t any. The only fun is in upsetting the apple cart. It’s in making folks think, “Well, I never saw that coming.”

So I waited. I moved up toward the top of the goalie box and I waited. The kid came straight down the field at me. I don’t want to project into his mind, but I have to figure that he was less worried about if he would score than he was concerned with how he would score. His previous goals had been pretty. He had a cheering section right up in the corner by the goal. He wanted to make this goal simply gorgeous, and he wanted to look cool doing it.

Me? I wanted to make a save, and it could be ugly as hell for all I cared.

He was looking for me to make a move. I didn’t.

Not yet. Come closer.

I watched his body. Closer.

I watched the ball. Closer…

He got too close.

He was fast, but no one is that fast. He hadn’t left himself enough room to make a clean move.

I went down, splitting my legs, my head feinting to his right. He cut to his left—not the direction most folks in our league would go. He was past my right foot. Nothing between him and that wide open net.

Until my right hand swatted the ball off his foot.

Just like that. Only took a heartbeat.

The place went silent.

Well, silent except for Dane yelling, “Way to go, Mike!” (Gotta love Dane.)

And the thing of it was, that in that heartbeat, everything shifted. The reality that everyone had been so certain was true just up and shattered. If you want to believe in opening doorways to parallel universes, that was it. We were all off in a new world—one where I was feeling about seven feet tall, all big and bad, my heart pounding.

I got up, beat the kid to the ball (and slammed him into the wall *bonus*) and sent the ball back down field. That didn’t win us the game. It didn’t even get us back into competition. (An Act of God couldn’t have done that.) But the save gave me back a piece of self-respect. Something about beating the odds—in soccer, in getting published, in anything—that reminds you that you’re hugely alive.

I think we all need those little victories. We need those moments of pure win, because they’re the things that keep us going through the times the world grinds us down. They let us remember that even if the odds are against you, you can win. You have to put your mind to it, stand your ground, and let the other folks make a mistake.

Only time you truly lose if if you give up on yourself and, no matter the circumstance, there’s never a good reason to do that.