Shelter Island Reporter Editorial: The real winners
We congratulate the Shelter Island School varsity boys basketball team for breaking a streak of five years without a single victory on its home court.
It was an exhilarating victory on Friday, Jan. 9, against an historic cross-bay rival, perfectly placed for Homecoming and at the conclusion of “Spirit Week” at the school. We salute the coaches, staff and athletes for winning the game going away, with an upbeat, disciplined offense and a shut-down defense when it was needed.
But in addition to the victory, we salute this team’s character, and all the teams that came before, for fighting hard every time out with hustle and grit to gain a victory but coming up short. They showed everyone that losing a game doesn’t make you a loser, if you give your all and then take the results with grace.
Being a sore loser, sadly, is a time-honored American tradition. Generations of young American athletes learn this when they are bequeathed the words of the Sage of Green Bay, Vince Lombardi: “Show me a good loser, and I’ll show you a loser.” Or a UCLA coach, Henry Russel “Red” Sanders, who bristled that, “Winning isn’t everything — it’s the only thing.”
A great patriot, businessman, politician, and sportsman once owned a professional football team until it and the whole league went belly up. This winner was worried about naming his first-born son after himself. “What if he’s a loser?” he wondered aloud.
There are blasphemers to this liturgy of sore losing. One of the greatest coaches in American history, John Wooden, said about losing: “You must simply study it, learn from it, and try hard not to lose the same way again. Then you must have the self-control to forget about it.” He understood the 19th-century English novelist, Samuel Butler, who wrote: “One of the first businesses of a sensible man is to know when he is beaten, and to leave off fighting at once.”
So, here’s to the athletic department at Shelter Island School, to basketball coaches Michael “Zack” Mundy and Mike Dunning, and those who preceded them on the sidelines, and especially for all the athletes who wore and wear the Island jersey, congratulations on stopping the streak, and showing class no matter what the scoreboard showed at the final buzzer.
The last words should be left to Muhammad Ali who said, after a loss, “I never thought of losing, but now that it’s happened, the only thing is to do it right. That’s my obligation to all the people who believe in me. We all must take defeats in life.” The basketball team is an inspiration to all.
