When legendary Green Bay Packers coach Vince Lombardi coined the phrase “winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing,” more than a handful of reasonable adults became overbearing when it came to youth sports.
I’ve written and spoken about how those who are competitive automatically seem to get persecuted by some people as being “over the edge” or “win at all costs.” On the other hand, those who are not competitive in an outwardly demonstrative way get labeled as “soft.”
It’s as if there were no in-between.
Anyhow, that classification made me think back to another conversation I had with a former high school assistant football coach when I was a sports reporter. This fellow asked me, “Vince, isn’t it easier to cover a winning team than a losing team?”
As one who has had the chance to cover everything from Little League to the NFL, I would say the answer to that question is “yes and no” but more the former than the latter. If the team I cover is a winning one, my paycheck doesn’t increase all of a sudden.
In one respect, my job doesn’t change whether the team I cover wins or loses. It doesn’t change whether the team is 10-0 or 0-10. Cover the game. Report on it objectively. Talk to the coach and/or players after the game.
From my view, however, yes — it is easier to cover a winning team regardless of competition level, but it is especially true from high school age and younger.
At the pro and college level, media members have an unwritten rule of “no cheering in the pressbox.” That rule sounds good in theory because as media members you are paid by your news organization, not the team.
On the other hand, I’ve seen media members go out of their way to be too harsh on the team they cover just to prove they don’t play favorites. That approach isn’t good either because it comes off as too adversarial.
Covering sports at the younger level (i.e. high school and below), however, is a different ball of wax. In multiple high school towns, you don’t dare show any form of allegiance because the “rival” school is looking for a reason to go to the Bush League “you’re against us” card. I use the term Bush League because it typically comes when the individual is on the losing side of the argument.
In towns with one high school, sports reporters have a little more latitude to have a partisan approach. I have somewhat mixed feelings about that procedure because it might lead to having clouded objectivity.
I will admit, however, that covering local teams when they win is certainly far more pleasurable simply because, in general, athletes under age 18 have a psyche too fragile to want to read about anything construed as negative (i.e. a loss) in the newspaper.
On the other hand, I don’t need to worry about that if the team wins or loses but plays well in the process.
Plus, the senior year of high school is going to be the pinnacle of most people’s athletic careers.
In addition, when I was in the newspaper industry I used to get asked from time to time, “How do you decide sports coverage or what your main story is?” Well, in my world, there was no hard and fast rule because every week and every day presents a different dynamic. In addition, sometimes I might have more stories that are lead material than I know what do with but others might be more of a challenge.
The main things I sought were timelines, newsworthiness and, of course, if the team is winning. If a team plays well but loses, I’ll have no problem making them the lead or going longer on a story.
Some people might say, “Well, does youth sports have to be about winning?” To some degree, I would say yes because people read a community sports section by and large for positive news. After all, there’s more than enough negativity to go around by watching newscasts. There’s also plenty of unfavorable news on Sportscenter pertaining to pro athletes breaking the law.
If I cover a local team that constantly loses, I’m not going to omit the final score because I’ve got to draw the line somewhere. If I bury the story, however, it’s not because I don’t like the players and coaches in question.
Instead, I do it because having been a high school athlete myself of a team that stunk and got little coverage, I felt my hometown paper did the team a favor by not shining the light of us because we got plenty of razzing at school on our own without it.
Again, I think the idea of “winning doesn’t matter” is pure nonsense. Notice how those buying into that notion often believe that having fun matters more.
Some folks would even argue that the reason winning is not important is that one out of every 100 high school seniors in America are going to get a scholarship to play a sport beyond high school.
True, however, I would argue that’s all the more important reason to preach the importance of winning.
If a young man or woman has only one chance to play youth sports, why not make the most of it? Having said that, winning and competition are important but it falls on the adults to preach it in a constructive manner.
Contrary to what some may think, there are ways of doing it. An occasional loss can be a useful learning tool, but not preaching the importance of competition gives youngsters a delusional idea of what they will face in the real world.
In my real world, I enjoying covering winners and if the team loses, I focus no more on the negative than necessary.
If the home team plays well but loses, I have no problem delving further.
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