Winning through losing.
I remember going to a basketball summer camp between 7th and 8th grade. The team I was on was terrible, but we had more fun than anyone else there. We through in zone defenses, full-court presses and strange inbound plays. We even played a game where our point guard sprinted up court every time the other team took a shot to try to get easy fast break points. It didn’t work. We finished like 3-9, but it was the best team I’d ever been on.
In high school, my debate team finished third in state in Congressional debate. Three years before that, we had just one person on a moribund team. I’d say, maybe, half of the team members went on to college. Most of the schools we were competing against would have been sad if 50 percent of their kids only made it into state schools. We were never playing for higher than a bronze, but we got exactly what we could.
I like playing on losing teams. It isn’t that I like losing. Ask anyone I played intramural sports with in college. I hate losing, but I like the idea of winning when you are supposed to lose. Maybe that’s why I like what I do so much. The odds are stacked against my colleagues and I every day, and the results too often show that. But, the chance to succeed against those odds, to change something that most people wouldn’t even try to change? That’s thrilling to me.
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