How I Became an Excellent Loser

Growing up in the American south means you are exposed to a few hobbies that border on obsessions.

Hunting, fishing, off-roading, and football.

The latter is the topic of this story.

Prelude to the pig skin

My father was a football coach. My first experience with football was the water boy of the public school team he coached. The players were titans standing next to me. I graduated from water boy to ball boy. No more standing on the sidelines, I was needed. I ran the ball out to the referee in between plays.

My first time playing the game was flag football in elementary school. Your not really playing the game. The fastest kid on the field is and everyone else is standing there watching.

My first taste of excitement happened when my father brought me a set of pads and helmet home so that I could dress up like a football player for Halloween. I was a superhero, invincible, I strutted about like the biggest badass.

Middle of the pack

I suited up and played junior high ball. This was the first time I got to play actual football.

It was a mix of emotions.

I was middle of the pack, size wise, so most of my peers didn’t scare me but there were a few I did not want to go head-to-head with.

The two years of Middle school ball were uneventful, we were not champions but we had a winning season both years.

My 8th grade year, the high school team took state and were dominant throughout the year. My classmates and I were excited about our opportunity to continue our school’s legacy of being a power house amongst the different small private, public and parochial schools in our conference.

Highschool ball

Everything changed my sophomore year of high school.

My freshman year was the last year the school remained in the 1A conference. Our school’s attendance record bumped us up two levels to 3A.

Ironically, it was due to additional students which we immediately lost and could return to our conference but you have to stay in the assigned conference for 5 years.

For the next three years we went to strange uncharted territories. Our motley bunch of catholic school kids, 40 in total, traveled to public schools all over Mississippi and Louisiana playing massive teams.

We entered literal stadiums and watched 100 man football teams come out onto the field followed by full marching bands.

We got the shit kicked out of us for 3 years. 50–0, 60–0, 45–0,

one ass whoopin after another.

My sophomore year we were 0–9 and played the state champions in our previous conference. They were a long time rival, and we beat them 50–0. We would have dominated our previous conference.

My senior year I started on offense, defense and special teams. We all did. We played teams who had complete lineup changes for each but not us. We had to go down-to-down.

On defense I played end. A few plays into one game, the ball snapped, and nobody touched me. Usually the offensive tackle engages the defensive end and attempts to block them as they apply pressure on the quarterback. Nobody touched me, by the time I realized, I was behind the line looking at two steroid fueled men barreling at me.

I woke up, a few seconds later and everyone was running as hard as they could to catch them. That was one of many concussions I experienced during my football tenure.

Learning to lose

Looking back on all of this losing, one thing has stayed with me for all of these years;

I am an excellent loser.

It was one of the most valuable life lessons I gained throughout my time in high school. Learning how to lose has made me a better competitor in every aspect of life.

We lost 50–0 and were still in the weight room Sunday afternoon lifting and watching tapes. Monday morning we were running sprints and plays. We kept at it even though we knew we would get killed again on Friday.

Losing on Medium

In November I missed my goal of $50 dollars on Medium and felt defeated. If I wasn’t such a great loser I would have let that get to me in a negative way.

I know that feeling and its part of life.

It’s ok to lose, I wrote 100 stories here and only one of them went viral, and it was the 96th story. I lost 95 times in a row before I won here on Medium. At the end of November I felt like I was never going to be able to hit my goal of $50. Then December rolled around and I made over $200.

Learn to lose

Learning to lose is one of the most valuable life lesson. I am grateful that we were bumped up into a larger conference and I got my ass kicked for 3 years. It taught me how to get back up and keep at it.