Sport at school level should be educational – finish and klaar! Anyone who tries to say otherwise is trying to defend the indefensible – the idea that winning is what sport is all about, and that everything should be done to ensure victory for teams and individuals.
I was at the King Edward v Jeppe derby game last Saturday and I came away in great spirits. It was a great day – a capacity crowd watched the first team game, which was the 20th rugby game of the day, and there had been 13 hockey games too.
The players in the main game showed huge commitment and passion, and the underdogs won – which always appeals to my sensibilities.
Importantly, there were no unsavoury incidents on the field, or in the stands, where the spectators (many of them those infamous “old boys” that give the principals of the schools involved sleepless nights in the week leading up to games like these) were shoe-horned in.
It seemed, for once, that things had gone the way they should. Then, on the Sunday, I read a Facebook post from a teacher at Jeppe, written in response to what I assume was a number of adverse comments from old boys in the social media to the fact that Jeppe had lost the game.
I obviously sympathise with those who are disappointed their team had lost – my own coaching days, I remember, consisted mainly of that feeling – but it seems some hurtful comments were made about the players and coaches, at a time when everyone was feeling down because of the defeat and, therefore, rather sensitive.
Please forgive me as my needle gets stuck in that same crack once again, but let’s be clear: school rugby fixtures are not primarily organised with the intention of winning the matches played on the day.
That sounds all wrong, I know. The aim of competing is to win, I concede, and any player who does not try his or her hardest to win, and any coach who does not prepare the team or individual to the best of his or her ability, is in dereliction of duty.
But someone is going to lose every time a game is played. So when, in this case, schools arrange sporting fixtures they know they have a 50 percent chance (statistically) of losing. If winning is the only acceptable outcome, why would they arrange the matches in the first place?
The answer is in the educational value of sport at school. Far more hours are spent in training, practice and the lessons begin there for competition.
The matches are the pinnacle of the week and, sure, it’s better to win than to lose, but it’s how you handle victory and defeat that you show how much you have learned.
After the game at King Edward last Saturday, one of the teachers quoted Rudyard Kipling to me.
It was a line from his poem If: “If you can meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two impostors just the same,” was how it went.
And it refers to the theme of the poem: if you can do that, “you will be a man, my son”.
It reminded me of another line, one I quoted in this column a few months ago, from Paul Dobson: “Win as if you have lost, and lose as if you have won,” he said.
Follow those two pieces of advice and you should be happier with the idea that, while we all try to win, it really is okay to lose.
And that sport at school level is, and always should be, educational.
Finish and klaar!