Winning at all costs

The other day, we were watching kids, some as young as four or five years, being coached in the fundamentals of golf at the Wack Wack Golf and Country Club. All the kids were exposed to the searing summer heat but did not mind it all as they were obviously having fun under the guidance of their teaching pro, the statuesque Heidi Chua, daughter of our De La Salle buddy, Victor, and niece of Vic’s younger brother, Val.

I observed how Heidi responded to the challenge of sustaining the attention of playful children who easily get distracted and bored with repetitive activities.

This short anecdote on coaching children and youth in sports takes place in thousands of other sports centers all over the world with varying outcomes. At the end of the day, the ideal is to sustain the interest of children in sports and physical activity so that sport is fun and not a burden to be carried by children who just want to enjoy.

It is also at this period in children’s lives that adults take over, abuse the principle, “there’s nothing like starting them young”, and wrongly inculcate in these young impressionable minds that winning is all that matters.

The win at all cost paradigm brings to mind the message of Tom Krause in Touching Hearts – Teaching Greatness, entitled “Always be your Best” and quoted in the book “Raising an Athlete”: How to instill confidence, build skill and inspire a love of sport, written by Jack Perconte:

“When you think it doesn’t matter; if you fail or pass the test; Keep in mind the whole world may not notice if you tried to give your all; there is a person in you to whom it matters if you fall; That little voice inside you – which reads your thoughts each day – will make the final judgment if you won or lost each day; Never can you fail yourself if you give all you’ve got; The world extends a hand to you when you give your life your best shot; For all that really matters when you’re finished with your test is not the final score at all but did you do your best?”

Truly, when such a message is lost on people, especially children- and youth-athletes is when ruinous attitudes and practices come in. And today, the most pernicious among these practices is the use of performance enhancing drugs (PED’s), which has invaded almost all sports like athletics, boxing and bodybuilding.

Veteran sports writer and recent visitor to Manila, Hermie Rivera, has continued his tirades against PED’s which became more intense after the knockout loss of Manny Pacquiao to Juan Manuel Marquez. Rivera, in an email even hinted that PED’s were also in the picture in the Nonito Donaire-“Rigodon” Rigondeaux and Brian Viloria- Juan Francisco Estrada bouts.

No doubt, one’s attitudes towards sport, winning, money, power, etc have been shaped by a variety of things from one’s upbringing by one’s parents who are in turn affected (and affect) the environment.

How one views sport and winning is developed at an early age. In the chapter “Eating Disorders, Body Image, Steroids and Supplements” of the book “Whose game is it anyway?, authors Richard D. Ginsburg, Stephen Durant and Amy Baltzell, stated that sports can help our children maintain a healthy weight and positive self-image, but some kids become so intensely focused on being physically fit and looking good that they follow unhealthy diets, exercise excessively, and experiment with dangerous drugs. Some athletes may take steroids and legal but possibly harmful supplements to build muscle in order to gain a competitive edge in their sport.

Ginsburg, Durant and Baltzell continue to stress that many kids in the US try using many harmful substances than so-called energy drinks. In one statewide study in Iowa involving male high school football players and female volleyball players, up to eight percent of the male athletes and two percent of the female athletes were using some type of food supplement or steroid.

Creatine, an amino acid, is taken to improve performance and build strength. According to some researchers, when athletes use creatine, they experience less fatigue during intense physical activity such as sprinting and weightlifting, and they improve their recovery time after exerting themselves.

In boxing, the latest drug scandal involved J’Leon Love. According to Rick Reeno, the Nevada State Athletic Commission has announced “Love tested positive for Hydrocholorothiazide in the aftermath of his 10-round split decision win over Gabe Rosado, which took place on May 4 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. The middleweight bout was the opening contest on the Floyd Mayweather-Robert Guerrero Showtime pay-per-view event”. That’s just one boxer caught. How many more are out there showing unusual strength in their mid and late 30’s and 40’s deftly masquerading as “clean” and skillful athletes?