Have you ever noticed how much people want to root for something and feel good about winning? I was with my family waiting for a table to open up in a restaurant, when the Red Sox got the winning run and the entire room erupted. No hesitation. No one knew anyone else seated in the waiting room. Yet, smiles appeared, cheers accompanied, and the atmosphere changed immediately.
The World Cup is providing the same opportunity to root for the home team, with homes, gathering places, and some workplaces erupting when the country of choice wins. It’s fun for some and far more serious for others.
There is a huge difference between celebrating a great game, great shot, great play, or a final winning result and belittling, deriding, or otherwise emotionally railing against a team that is winning that is not the choice of the fan. In many contexts today, competition and unconscious fans have really gotten out of hand. Although it can be more than unpleasant to listen to the rants against opposing teams in collegiate or professional sports, it is really disheartening to listen to negative rants and eruptions against players of wining teams in children’s sports.
I was talking with a parent of a particularly tall and gifted young soccer player who was appalled at the derogatory rants and behavior of another parent directed at the first parent’s son. The rants and negative yells against the winning team and particularly successful player were beyond nasty.
Have we lost all sense of the kinds of values we wish our kids to emulate? We surely don’t model any kind of sporting behavior when we spend our energy deriding successful players and teams. “Win at all cost” mentality seems to engender permission to behave in a kind of bullying behavior that sets a poor example for children.
There is a big difference between rooting for the best performance in players and rooting against the best performance when competing teams are winning. There is an opportunity here to recognize what we choose to stand for and what we choose to support in human behavior. Hasn’t the cavalier behavior of executives of large financial institutions and lenders around the world, for example, taught us something about the world we create when we focus only on having the home team win—at all cost, instead of supporting the best performance in all the players?
What would it take for us to reframe competition so that we root for the home team’s success AND celebrate the great plays of all the players—no matters who is declared winner? Whatever happened to competing against oneself to be one’s best AND by doing so raising the game for all involved? I’m casting my vote for rooting for the best in ourselves AND others. How about you?
