Winners and Losers
Backwards and Forwards #9—Winners and Losers
A Newsletter from Rabbi Jonathan Miller
I am not a typical sports fan, with the exception of college football and especially the University of Alabama Crimson Tide (Roll Tide Roll!). During the season, I get into it. And I like the Superbowl. I cheered for the New England Patriots when they dominated the NFL, once upon a long time ago. Otherwise I’m not much of a fan. The sports pages in my Washington Post go mostly unread. Baseball? Nah. Just too slow. Hockey and basketball were once important to me. But John Havlicek and Bill Russell are gone from the game, and so is Bobby Orr, who has not graced the ice in the Boston Garden for decades. I think what happened to me is that I discovered girls and preferred the feminine to the adrenaline. And I liked girls more than sports. I even married one and, to this very day, I am grateful for that discovery. Sometimes in marriage you can lose a game. But I have never had a losing season.
In January I attended two remarkable basketball games. Visiting family and friends and dodging rain drops in Los Angeles, I enjoyed a college ball game. Andrew, Judi’s cousin-once-removed plays basketball for Occidental College (Go Tigers!). We cheered for Andrew and his Tiger team against the Whittier College Poets (for real, that is the name of their athletic team). The gym had open seating. Finding the perfect place to view the game, three rows up from the floor at center court, was not a problem.
School was not in session. Andrew’s cheering squad, all eight of us, comprised a third of the attendees and we hooted and hollered for the Tigers. Still, the high school gym-like atmosphere provided no popcorn, stale pizza or diet coke. I am proud to say that the Tigers beat the Poets by five points in a high scoring game. Andrew’s Tigers were ahead by 18 points at the half, but the Poets were ferocious in attempting their comeback.
A ferocious poet?? Let that image sink in.
I was amazed at Andrew’s level of play. In real life, Andrew is the definition of a sweetheart. On the court, he is possessed. Both teams of young men played so hard that I wanted to root for all of them. The passes came fast and furious. The drives under the basket were powerful displays of grit. Sitting up close, as opposed to watching on TV, I could feel the players exhaust themselves. They played with determination to win. Holding nothing back, every Tiger and every Poet, gladiators all, went all out.
I hadn’t been back in Bethesda more than ten hours before I was a loyal fan once again, this time in the gym to attend my granddaughter Tali’s first basketball game. Her kindergarten girls’ team, the black shirts challenged the navy-blue shirts on a neutral court. Between the two teams, one little girl scored one basket. I don’t remember whether the black shirts or the navy blues emerged victorious.
Sweet little Tali was clueless. Tali is the smallest on her team, and the youngest too. Her skinny arms and legs don’t have the strength to catapult the basketball to the lowered rim of the basket. Tali spent most of her playing time standing in the middle of the court not knowing which way to look. Occasionally the ball came in her direction fast enough that she couldn’t get out of its way. Poor thing had to pick it up and dribble it in an undetermined direction. She managed three or four bounces before the ball lay flat on the hardwood and some little girl picked it up and snatched it away, much to Tali’s relief.
I didn’t ask Tali if she had a good time. I wasn’t eager to know the answer.
I remembered back to my childhood athletic career. I was bigger than most of my friends, so I could stand under the basket and block some shots, providing that they waited for me to run down the court so I could get in place. During the dreaded spring little league, I stood behind the right fielder hoping the sun wouldn’t shine in my eyes. My high handicap contributed to my bowling team’s success. When we chose teams in the sandlot, I was the “Ok, we’ll take him” last to be picked. Sometimes I was next to last. Then, I felt like a winner! For athletes like me, it’s all relative.
In my dreams, I wish I could have been my cousin Andrew, flying down the court—knowing exactly where to stand, unintimidated by my opponent, willing to shoot with a likelihood of scoring and bringing my team closer to victory. But in reality, during my childhood athletic career I was a bulked-up version of my adorable granddaughter, secretly hoping the ball would not come my way.
Don’t dismiss me entirely. I was good at band and chess, and girls too.
On the Bethesda basketball court, I revisited my childhood insecurities. But as I reflect from my perch some sixty years later, I learned a lot from my defeats. Here are my losers’ lessons.
I learned that the desire to crush one’s opponents is important but being nice is necessary for happiness.
I learned that I am still ok, even if I drop the ball now and then.
I learned that character can be shaped on the gridiron of life. But life is more than a gridiron contest. What we do when nobody is watching can matter even more.
I learned how to lose without being a loser.
I learned that winning is more fun than losing, but there is a whole lot more to a successful life than only winning.
I learned that life does not have to be a contest.
I learned that I can be loved even when other people do better than me.
I hope and pray that both Andrew and Tali, whom I love dearly, will enjoy their victories—justly earned. And I hope and pray that they will grow even more from realizing the blessings that can come from overcoming their defeats.
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As a student rabbi decades ago, I traveled to a small town in North Carolina every month to practice being a rabbi. I wasn’t very good at it, but as a second-year student, I more than met expectations.
I sort of marveled at the downtown Jewish businessmen (they were all men) who ran a good number of the downtown businesses—the women’s ready to wear, the furniture store, the shoe store, the carpet store and the dry goods-compete with Woolworths-store. Almost half a century later, all these stores are closed, and the downtown is pretty much deserted as shoppers fled to the suburban malls. The business moguls’ children weren’t interested in taking over their dads’ businesses. And they weren’t particularly interested in small town southern life either.
I have thought a lot about these business owners and the communities they served. In Take My Dog, my still unpublished novel, I have enjoyed recreating the lives of small-town businessmen and again visiting their Main Street stores in Brookhill, Mississippi, if only in my imagination.
Please enjoy and stay tuned. Backwards and Forwards will appear, again, magically in your inbox in a few weeks. In the meantime, feel free to drop me a note at backwardsforwards.newsletter@gmail.com.
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Whether we are going backwards or forwards, none of us is standing still. And successful people can move both forwards and backwards at the same time.
Until next time, shalom,
Jonathan