"More than ever, losers head for the low road" by Joseph P. Kahn | Globe Staff June 17, 2014
A Triple Crown hopeful’s owner complains about his horse’s loss in the Belmont Stakes, saying the winner’s team took “the coward’s way out” by skipping the first two races. An NHL hockey player taunts an opponent after his team exits the playoffs, violating tradition. A pollster to a prominent Republican congressman blames the candidate’s stunning losson the “liberal media.”
This year is already shaping up to be a vintage one for sour grapes.
Related: Sour Grapes
I'm detecting some of that in this article!
A festival of fine whines and full-throated airing of grievances. A tsunami of sore losers and their pouting, ego-bruised surrogates.
Collectively, these public displays of pique raise the question of whether gracelessness in defeat is becoming more prevalent than ever — the new normal when things go badly and the brass ring slips away — or merely more noticeable. Is it the product of our 24/7, multiplatform news culture and YouTube/Twitterverse, where every rant and hissy fit can instantly go viral?
I'm sensing some whining myself.
“It does seem to be getting worse,” says psychologist Frank Sileo, executive director of The Center for Psychological Enhancement in Ridgewood, N.J., and author of several children’s books, including “Sally Sore Loser: A Story About Winning and Losing.”
Modeling good sportsmanship, he notes, whether the person in the spotlight is an athlete, politician, entertainer, or some other prominent figure, has an outsized impact on young people. For parents, conversely, public whining and finger-pointing can become teachable moments in how not to behave.
Okay, son, here is a newspaper. This is propaganda. These are lies.
“Our culture is all about winning, and no one likes to lose,” a mindset amplified by a reality-TV ethos “where treating people badly is glorified and competitors are trashed,” Sileo says. But failure is part of life, too, he maintains. When unhappy losers vent their frustrations, the general public gets desensitized to the complaining, or somehow thinks it’s acceptable.
Okay, I want to take that three ways:
One is the obvious agenda-pu$hing a$pect to not complain. Forget about wealth inequality, you lo$ers!
Second, reality TV is nothing of the sort, it's all looking like contrived distortions at best to outright lies and hoaxes at worst, but the complaint is coming from the same organizations of ma$$ media that have promoted such divisive images and ideas through their pri$ms.
As for the third, the desensitization is an analogy for how I -- and others -- feel about the constant Israeli whining based on trickery.
Okay, back to the game.
Even a local hero like New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick can come off as a disgruntled loser in the heat of the moment.
He is kind of a dick.
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When blowback happens, as it often does, reactions have varied from contrition to defiance.
Some, like California Chrome owner Steve Coburn, have sensed the need for damage control and quickly apologized. Others, such as Belichick and Boston Bruins forward Milan Lucic, whose unsportsmanlike behavior turned off many Bruins fans, have neither backed down nor admitted they erred.
The sports world routinely offers the most dramatic examples, or seems to. And with the World Cup underway in Brazil, expect a losing team or two to cry foul over flopping opponents, inept refs, and other agents of their outrageous misfortune.
They got off to a bad start, too.
Massachusetts General Hospital psychologist Richard Ginsburg, co-director of MGH’s PACES Institute of Sports Psychology, points to the pervasive influence of ESPN and how, at the professional level, sports have become “more Hollywood, more about the individual” than in generations past.
LeBrand James!
Also see: ESPN Rampant With Sexual Assaults?
I always wondering what was going on back stage.
Yet youth sports have also developed what he calls “a dark side,” one eroding the character and social development of many players along with their parents, and coaches.
Never mind the all sexual assault cases that keep coming up regarding coaches.
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No one has compiled a sore losers’ hall of fame. But if one existed, its ranks might include Richard Nixon, who, after losing the 1962 California gubernatorial election, bitterly said, “You won’t have Nixon to kick around anymore, because gentlemen, this is my last press conference.” (It wasn’t.); Earl Weaver, the late, fiery Baltimore Orioles manager, who once said, “On my tombstone write, ‘The sorest loser that ever lived’”; New York City mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner, who punctuated his 2013 defeat by making an obscene gesture to a reporter; hip-hop artist Kanye West, who, at the 2006 MTV Europe Awards, failed to win a best video award, then stormed the stage and, in an expletive-filled tirade, declared, “If I don’t win, the award show loses credibility.” (He wishes.); and, convicted killer James “Whitey” Bulger, who squawked about not receiving a fair trial, a statement his victims’ next of kin found hard to swallow.
Don't leave yourself out, either, Globe.
Related:
"One of the most historic journalism sites of the past half-century will soon vanish, after a decision by the Arlington County Board on Saturday to demolish the building and parking garage where FBI official Mark Felt, who was dubbed ‘‘Deep Throat’’ by a Washington Post editor, secretly met with [and] provided Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward with information that exposed the Nixon administration’s obstruction of the FBI’s Watergate investigation. Felt, the second-highest official in the FBI, chose the garage as a secure location and met with the little-known reporter in the dark of night six times between October 1972 and November 1973. The Watergate scandal resulted in President Nixon’s resignation in 1974."
Maybe you should get a room to render your verdict, readers.
Closer to home, North Attleborough boy’s track and field coach Derek Herber made national news recently when he discovered a scoring error that had allowed his team to win a Division 2 Eastern Mass. championship. Herber reported the mistake, costing his team the title (his boys finished third) while earning him high marks for honesty and sportsmanship: in short, the opposite of being a sore loser.
I did that once in a dice football game once (not the championship). I miscalculate the yardage need and was able to hit a Hail Mary pass, but in doing the statistics for the game found the error, called the guy, said I was fixing the result and he won a game he should have won anyway.
I liken it to the competitive nature of sports; unconsciously, the will to win means you count a point for your team that you should have scored and conveniently forget one your opponent got. Then an argument ensues and play stops on the basketball floor.
“Most coaches are also teachers,” said Herber later. “You’re teaching other things in sports. You’re not teaching just wins and losses. You’re teaching about athletics being a tool of education.”
Follow the orders from the authority figure and CEO.
Meanwhile, Boston sports teams have brought home multiple championships in recent years. When they fail and diss their opponents, do they risk being labelled sore losers?
“Less as sore losers, I think, than as arrogant,” says Bill Littlefield, host of National Public Radio’s “Only a Game.” Long before YouTube came along, he notes, Celtics coach Red Auerbach rankled opponents and their fans by lighting up a victory cigar before the game was over. Not the best example of sportsmanship, he suggests, just Red being Red....
I hate to say it, but he was a you-know-who.
--more--"
Related: Little League Games Take Too Long
That is why I never made it back last night; that and exhaustion from playing basketball.
Whine, whine, whine, huh?
Also see:
I'll probably take in a match or two later now that the U.S. won one.
