A number of years ago at the schools Rugby Festival, one school beat another school by over sixty  points in what was clearly a total mismatch. Neither team benefitted from the experience: the team  that was hammered not only had a number of players injured so badly that they were ruled out for  most of the season before it had even started but also had their confidence severely damaged while  the team that won so convincingly gained nothing by simply walking through tackles and scoring  individually and easily. What was all the more disappointing was that the team that had lost so  heavily had specifically asked for matches against schools of a similar level yet were denied such an  opportunity, perhaps because the more dominant team had asked for ‘easy’ matches to give their  players confidence going into the season – all this in what was billed as a ‘Festival’ (pre-season fun),  not a ‘Tournament’ (where a team becomes the overall winner).  

However, there is something even more disturbing about this incident. Shortly after the end of the  ‘Festival’, the team that had won that fixture so easily contacted the other school to ask for a fixture  during the regular season. Such a request might have appeared somewhat bizarre and irrational (not  to mention pointless and insensitive) but it certainly became even more ugly and sickening when it  was discovered that the reason they wanted the fixture so badly was so that they could beat the  other school by over a hundred points; they wanted to score a century! They wanted to be  remembered as being a team that beat another team by over one hundred points.  

This incident is recorded here as it shows a sad yet fundamental flaw in thinking with regard to  school sport (and life). What it showed was that winning was not enough. It was not enough for the  players to win; they had to be able to rub it in, to ram it down the opponents’ throat, to remind  them who were better. A team wins by one point and they are initially pleased but then they want  to win by ten points which soon becomes twenty points. Even then, twenty points is not enough; it  has to be thirty. Even one hundred points would not be enough. Winning was not enough.  

There is a scene in the wonderful film ‘Cool Runnings’ about the Jamaican bobsleigh team at the  1988 Winter Olympics which bears considering in the light of this article’s subject. The coach of the  team is seen as one who had won two gold medals in his younger days but also as one who had  cheated in order to win another gold medal. The aspiring team captain quizzed his coach: “You had it  all. Why did you cheat?” The coach’s answer was first illuminating and honest: “It’s quite simple,  really. I had to win. You see, Derice, I’d made winning my whole life. And when you make winning  your whole life, you have to keep on winning, no matter what.” He discovered he had to win no  matter how. The coach was correct in another way; when we make winning our whole life, we have  to keep on winning, no matter where. We have to win not just in sport but also in relationships; we  have to win in business; we have to win in elections; we have to win in everything – arguments,  debates, traffic jams. No matter what or how! Winning is never enough.  

There is certainly a very real danger that school teams have made it all about winning but the  players will sadly discover that winning is never enough. It is like a drug that promises so much but  simply leaves a dreadful vacuum afterwards. Sport is not the worst drug; winning is. Winning is  never enough; having it all is never enough. We must teach them that vital lesson.  

However, what the bobsleigh coach went on to say was even more profound and insightful, based as  it was on his own experience: “A gold medal is a wonderful thing. But if you are not enough without  it you will never be enough with it.” The simple fact is that winning a medal, trophy or match does  not determine who we are; winning a match will not bring us a job or a spouse. We might take the  words from a song of another film, ‘The Greatest Showman’ which extremely evocatively declare  that “All the shine of a thousand spotlights, All the stars we steal from the night sky Will never be  enough, Never be enough”. We have to be enough without the winning or else we will never be  enough. So our task as parents and teachers is to ensure that pupils are enough whether they win or  lose; our task is to help them understand what makes them enough. Maybe we can gain a slight  insight into the truth from the film’s title; it is not Cool Winnings but Cool Runnings. That is enough.