I recently traveled with my ultimate frisbee team for a tournament nearby in Würzburg. Like most ultimate tournaments, there was lots of running around, flatball catching, spirit circles, beer-racing, dancing into the wee hours of the morning, and of course, a severe lack of sleep. Unfortunately, there was also quite a bit of losing.
While I won’t say exactly how many games and by how much, suffice it to say that we weren’t exactly in the running for any of the top spots that weekend – except for the winning the party and spirit awards for the weekend (more on that later).
As much as I’d like to deny it, losing game after game of ultimate frisbee does wear one down a bit. Indeed, some games end up being flat-out unenjoyable, like when there’s already a 10-point differential 10 minutes into the game and you can’t seem to get one successful pass off. I’d absolutely be lying if I said I was having fun at times like those.
But I’ve come to realize that even in those demotivating experiences there is something to be learned; namely how to lose. It’s one of those rather difficult lessons in life, which of course makes it all the more important. Furthermore, it’s something everyone is familiar with, sports or no sports. To pick your head up and grind it out with a level head all while getting whomped on is truly a challenge – one that my teammates here rise to every time.
At the end of every ultimate tournament one team usually receives the spirt award. It’s one of cooler parts of ultimate frisbee, and it goes to the team which most embodied the spirit of the game (SOTG) at the tournament. Having SOTG means, among other things, maintaining a positive attitude and playing with an appropriate game-intensity. Each team rates their opponent’s SOTG after every game and the totals are tallied up at the end of the weekend. Despite our W/L record, our team is consistently in the running for the spirit award and we even won it outright in Würzburg!
And the more I reflect on it, the more I realize how special that spirit award is. In Würzburg, it reflected a group of people that, despite some monstrous score differentials, continued to play their hearts out with an overwhelmingly positive attitude. That is not an easy task, but it is absolutely something we all need to able to do in our lives.
We’re bound to lose at many things in this life, but how we lose is up to us. We can lose with SOTG or without it, and I’m quite thankful for the Fuldimates for demonstrating which is the better choice (and also for showing me what a Partysieg looks like).
