I was watching the Tech and Oklahoma game earlier tonight. Man, it was painful for a Tech fan. I can freely admit though that Oklahoma outplayed them. (Now if Tech comes from way behind after this fair-weather fan bailed out, I'm going to feel ridiculous but that's nothing new!) My mother and I were discussing that Tech didn't look like a championship team tonight.

So I googled the definition of champion. The first definition that popped up was one that wins first in a competition. I kept looking though and read a definition that said "one who has the characteristics of a winner." I don't think winning is what always makes you a champion. I think it's heart that makes you a champion. It's not like finding examples of that "heart" is hard to do.

My father was a high school football coach. He won't go down in any history books as the "winningest" coach. I think he has the heart of a champion though. My dad is competitive. He definitely thinks winning is important. He didn't think it was the most important thing about football though. He thought football was a lesson in putting the needs of a team before your own. He thought it was about the lessons of grace-graceful winning and graceful losing.

Chris will tell you that some of our biggest fights were over competitions. We could turn anything into a competition. To both of us the winning was what was important. (Of course, there were often some very intereting "prizes" for winning!) That's not what I want to teach M though.

I try hard to teach M that it's not the winning that is important. It's doing your best. I want the competition to be in putting forth your best effort. That means sometimes you are going to put all of your heart into something and not come out on top. So that means more practice, more effort and perhaps the next time you do win. It means not being okay with mediocre.