There are athletes and teams who rarely win in numerous individual and team competitions, and fans and sportswriters will call them losers.
Are they really losers?
I think if you’re competing, and you’re not talented, you’re still not a loser.
Of course, there are so-called losers whose competitive juices result in a transition to becoming winners because they strive for improvement in between competitions.
They compete with themselves in the weight room, through high-rep rituals at a free-throw line, a golf tee or putting green, or the stop-start steps of proper offensive line blocking techniques.
Read this quote from one of the most high-profile losers, ironically, boasting about winning:
“It is my great honor to be at Trump International Golf Club in West Plam Beach tonight, AWARDS NIGHT, to receive THE CLUB CHAMPIONSHIP TROPHY & THE SENIOR CLUB CHAMPIONSHIP TROPHY. I WON BOTH.”
This Kim Jong-un moment was brought to us by Donald J. Trump’s and Truth Social.
Kim Jung-un, his father, and his grandfather have ruled North Korea for nearly 75 years with enough of a stronghold on their ruling power for their supporting cast trough decades to publish and tell tales of superhuman feats likely never to have happened.
The Kim lineage is still in power in a system where no competition is required to retain power. No competition, winning through prohibiting or crushing anyone interested in legitimate competition.
Trump is a loser because he, too, isn’t a true competitor in this relative manner.
I’ve registered as a member of both political parties, so this isn’t about those parties.
This golf story in a Sports section column is also unapologetically veiling my convictions about one man who bespeaks an aversion to fair competition. This makes him, along with athletes and businesspeople who demonstrate this same aversion, a loser.
A true competitor would grow from his or her losses and seek opposition who will make him or her better, not call a system rigged, or by spewing nearly four years of election rigging lies.
Trump couldn’t push through an infrastructure bill with his party in control of the legislative branch. He tried to bluff the public with nothing to replace the Affordable Care Act because he doesn’t have the competitive drive to deliver a superior piece of legislation.
He just wanted to kill legislation that has only increased exponentially in participation because it demonstrated governance in a competitive political environment his predecessor promised, the produced.
How many teams have transitioned to a winning culture by expending most of their energy on protesting what they claim to be a rigged system?
There are numerous examples of local, regional, and national true competitors in the forms of individual athletes and sports teams who have been on the wrong side of an official’s call but moved on to the next game to work on matters in their control to avoid close calls dictating the outcome of future competition.
Those people who focused on avoiding losses by looking and focusing inward tended to end up successful if the talent were there to mold into a winner.
Donald J. Trump deserves to be called a loser because he demonstrably contradicts the principles of those who lose but continue to compete and improve themselves instead of relying on decisions made in their favor beyond their collective control.
I believe Rick Reilly’s (and others) stories and anecdotes about Trump cheating at golf because, as he has shown in the political spectrum, he is uncomfortable with true competition because he would – in almost all cases in a regulated setting – lose.
Did he really win anything at his West Palm Beach club despite what his blowhard Truth Social post told us or is this one of those North Korean-styled “Great Leader” proclamation?
Trump has not won any championship in a golf course he didn’t own according to Reilly, the aforementioned golf journalist with 45 years of the sport’s coverage on his resume.
Reilly noted Trump played these championship rounds alone on his courses he owns alone and declared himself the club champion. The respected golf journalist has seen how Trump plays – and cheats at - golf having spent time hitting the links with Trump.
Reilly has several anecdotes about Trump’s sleight of hand on the golf course to ensure his final score is difficult to review or protest much the same way he defrauded the state of New York’s tax laws, credit requirements, and insurability standards.
Are Trump’s clubs a microcosm of how he views taking the commander-in-chief helm for the world’s greatest economy and the world’s greatest military branches?
He wants it to be because he said so without defending his position, nor competing face-to-face among golf matches or elections.
Do scores of millions of voters believe that existing policies troubling them are worth installing a man whose Kim-dynastic statements have become white noise? How about working at the grass roots on those policies with legislative and executive branches to alleviate their discontent?
Share ideas with a blend of competition leading to the results and compromise on most of the differences.
Only a loser – in our country’s justice structure – would pass on what conventional wisdom tells us is a fair chance, his or her day in court (even the opportunity to plead guilty or plea bargain upon arraignment) the same way Trump is doing.
Why is this man trying to avoid even going to trial in a country assuring its citizens they are due their day in court?
Rules.
Golf and public office operate at their best with rules.
Donlad J. Trump – averse to rules, to boot - and his legal team are seeking immunity (not even implied in The Constitution – a document with a whole-lotta’ rules) from prosecution for acts supported by factual documentation, factual testimony, and clear rules of what someone in public office can and cannot do.
These well-supported criminal acts still require a jury of trump’s peers to find him either innocent or guilty. Isn’t this fair?
If Trump were a competitor, wouldn’t he want to contest these voluminous documents presented as evidence in court with oath-sworn testimony decided among a jury of his peers like most U.S. citizens?
If his case for innocence is valid, wouldn’t he let the rules speak for him?
Instead, to date, he continually cried foul, like a loser, on a near-daily basis.
Sounds to me like the self-proclaimed law-and-order candidate wants to hold an elected position of power without following rules.
Imagine if sports, and the athletes and ruling bodies governing them, worse yet, law enforcement and civil bodies everywhere, could abandon rules because they didn’t get their way.
There is a rule in court where you swear an oath to tell the truth. In the courtroom, violating this rule results in punishments up to imprisonment.
He’s avoided the trials so far where his testimony would lead to lying under oath in quick time. He’s found a way to circumvent the rules.
He ends many of his days in court stepping outside to replay his greatest hits: scores of lies he cannot state under oath in the courtroom doors closed for the day behind him.
Those who feel entitled to upward movement in sports, business, and politics instead of competing for a win to attain it should be watched closely.
For those of you who lose in fair competition, you are not losers. Look to the news on a near daily basis to see what kind of people are losers, instead.