There are moments in nearly every sporting event when a player, coach, or fan encounters a fork in the road.  Do I take the path that allows my emotions to get the best of me and fall victim to a display of poor sportsmanship?  Or do I take the path of discipline and show poise?

There are so many elements surrounding athletic events that we don’t control.  Demonstrating good sportsmanship is a component that lies 100 percent within our control.  When confronted with a situation riddled with turmoil, every coach, player, and parent gets to determine how they will handle their actions.

Let’s take a simple example of when an athlete encounters a fork in the road.  Consider a baseball game where a batter is at the plate with the bases loaded and one out.  It’s late in the game and the batter's team is down by one run.  With a 2-2 count, the batter takes a called strike three.  In that moment, the batter has a decision to make:

1. Walk back to the dugout, put the bat and helmet away, find a seat in the dugout, and look out towards the batter’s box, or,
2. Show bad body language that lets everyone know the batter thinks the umpire is at fault, like yelling something at the ump as the batter returns to the dugout, followed by slamming the bat and helmet in disgust while pacing the dugout and complaining about the call.

Decision 1 is clearly the showcase of good sportsmanship, but it’s also in the best interest of the athlete because it’s smart.  If the batter calmly walks back to the dugout, all eyes in the ballpark will shift to the next hitter.  Decision 2 extends the failed plate appearance, keeping the eyes in the ballpark on that batter.  It’s now not just a strikeout with the bases loaded:  it's also a moment that reflects poorly on the athlete’s character.

Listen, it’s not easy.  Competitive juices are flowing; an opportunity to have a big moment was missed, composed with failure in front of everyone in attendance.  But one must work at it, just like other aspects of the game.  Further, any successful athlete will tell you that the most important play is the next play.  If emotions can't be kept in check, the ability to focus on the next play will suffer.

Teammates will notice.  Opponents will notice.  Coaches will notice.  Game officials will notice.  Recruiters will notice.

Make the decision to become exceptional at sportsmanship.  You’ll not only choose the right path at each fork you encounter, but you’ll begin to take others with you.

Topics like this and more are discussed regularly on How You Play The Game, the official podcast of OSIP.  On January 1, OSIP founder Jack Furlong and chairperson Sean Ryan will produce their 100th episode of the program.  Dale Scott will join them on the podcast, and Furlong will announce the release of his highly anticipated book, On Sportsmanship: A Critical Reader and Handbook.  The mission of the book is to “reveal the steps to ensuring that each person does their best at treating others with respect in sports and competition.”

Tune in to listen to the podcast and also learn more about OSIP at osipfoundation.org.

There have been plenty of times while I've been umpiring a baseball game when I began to wonder if the coaches know that a human being is officiating this game.

In other words, do coaches/players/fans understand that the official is a human being with a soul, a spirit, emotions, a will, experiences, and value?  Does that one coach who constantly bickers with me know that I'm not just an object?  Does that coach know that, as soon as I walk off the field, I have to go home to my life and my loved ones and deal with the realities of life?

On the other side of things, when I watch a game, am I conscious of the fact that those on the field have to do the same thing?

Look at it this way:  although it does not necessarily fall under the umbrella of competition, do we realize that those who are involved in the creation of a movie are also human?  When we watch the movie, do we realize that actors and actresses are on the screen portraying characters, not the actual fictional (or factual) character?  When I'm watching Star Wars, do I see Luke Skywalker on the screen?  Or do I know that Mark Hamill is on the screen portraying Luke Skywalker?  If the character does something I don't like (see Episode VIII), is it the fault of Luke Skywalker?  Is it the fault of Mark Hamill?  Maybe it's the fault of the director, Rian Johnson!  Maybe it's the fault of the parent company, Disney!  Maybe it's nobody's fault!  Why am I so quick to need to place blame?

The point is that competition (or a vested interested thereof, especially when we are fans) suppresses our ability to empathize with others.  If we are not careful, we see the opposing fan as an object, not as a human being.  We see the official as a robot who is supposed to get every call right.  We see our opponent as the enemy who must be defeated.  We don't see any of these parties as people we might run into at the bar later, possibly trying to just unwind with a drink after a stressful day who may just need the company of another person to feel loved.

Competition tends to have a clearly defined distinction:  my victory equals your failure.  That is, if two parties are competing for the same thing, one will win and one will lose.  And if multiple parties are competing for the same thing, one will win and many will lose.

In some respects, that's not always the case.  Some competitions have multiple winners, or at least multiple parties who "make the cut."  The best example I can think of in my other industry of music is getting a gig at a particular venue.  Whether it is a club, concert hall, restaurant, or wherever, there are probably a limited number of available slots for an artist to perform, so the goal is to fill those slots with a variety of acts so as not to saturate the event.  One musician is not necessarily going to play every Saturday night at the same restaurant; there is probably a rotation of musicians who come in over a set period of time.  Therefore, if the competition is between getting the gig and not getting the gig in this case, you have a better chance of succeeding, and your success does not automatically equal the failure of someone else.

However, it is very easy to forget this.  No matter the industry, our failure can easily seep into our thoughts when we see someone else succeed, especially when it has no correlation to our situation!  If I see a colleague succeeding at a gig at a restaurant where I once tried to get a gig years prior, why am I jealous?  That doesn't mean that I am not a successful musician!  I can have tons of other gigs that allow me to perform and compensate me, but the fact that I didn't get that one gig and someone else did still irks me.  These are the situations where many of us need to take the additional time to think through these thoughts and readjust our views.

If a baseball roster has 25 guys on it, then 25 guys are going to make the cut, not just one.  Sure, there may be competition to earn a specific spot, but pulling the lens back will show that the example is somewhat similar to the idea above.

The point is that competition sometimes leads us to become jealous or wish even wish failure on others when it really has to bearing to our success.  Our paths sometimes lead us to something greater, and we have to be open and awake to that.

Have you ever stopped to think about whether professional athletes are actually friends?

On one hand, as we have always stated, it would behoove athletes in the same sport to recognize that they are all on the same team when it comes to being in the same union.  There is no reason to fight with members of other teams within the same sport for that reason alone, let alone that it is just plain wrong.  After all, they all want the same thing:  a fair wage to play a game for a living.

But on the other hand, think about how players on the same team have to compete with not only the players in the other dugout or on the other sideline, but on their own team as well.  If a player isn't performing well, he will usually be replaced by another player.  It becomes a competition within the same team to make sure that playing time is earned so as to avoid the "business" of sports where a slumping athlete will be benched for someone who might produce.

A similar comparison might be two actors who are both auditioning for the same part.  Or even just two professionals both trying to get the same job.  Colleagues under the same heading (and perhaps in the same union) must now fight for work just to be on the proverbial playing field where the actual work might happen!

The common response to this is that "it's a business."  The business is to produce the best possible product so that the bottom line continues to grow.  Success is defined by the income brought in, not the quality of the work.

It's not something that is changed easily (or even needs to necessarily be changed).  But it does deserve a second thought when it comes to trying to empathize with others.  Perhaps some of the lessons learned in this conundrum can be extrapolated into our lives.

As we return to the book "No Contest" by Alfie Kohn, an interesting thesis is presented.  We discuss competition as it relates to sports.  We've even examined it at the workplace.  But what happens when it comes home?

A quote from Walter Weisskopf cited by Kohn notes that competitors eventually sprout in the forms of "sex partners, siblings, neighbors, and peers of his group."  It's no wonder that a slang term for bedding a lover is "scoring!"

But think back to elementary days when emotions and attractions were not what drove someone towards a partner, but rather the competition to call him or her "yours" and parade him or her around like an object to be shown off.

Think of even more complex questions that could develop later into relationships as adulthood presses on.  Perhaps partners wonder who has the bigger paycheck, the most friends, or the sharper wit, to quote Kohn.

What happens when a child is born?  Could there be a competition as to which parent will be preferred by the child?  Could multiple children signal a competition for who is Mommy's or Daddy's favorite?  Do parents begin to compete with other parents as they socialize, wondering whose infant walked or talked first?  Does it continue as it is compared as to whose teenager got into the better college?

As you can see from these suppositions, anxiety is probably knocking at the door!

The point here, though, is that a conscious awareness that we have the potential to bring this type of setting home with us may just diffuse it and prevent it from even happening.  We are practicing good sportsmanship when we realize that none of these things should be a competition!  There is no ultimate prize in winning any of these games!  A perceived status or quick and short-lived gratification do not feed the ultimate desires of being human.

Instead of feeding this beast, work to celebrate each individual accomplishment for what it is:  individual.  It's not a game when it comes to this stuff.

I know we have bored readers with the exhaustive look at self-esteem and its relationship to competition and sportsmanship over the past few weeks.  So we'll move on...slightly...

If you're looking for more material on similar subjects, check out the old book "Problem Athletes and How to Handle Them" by Bruce Ogilvie and Thomas Tutko.  Although published many moons ago, there is a key point that holds true and reflects some interesting thoughts for us today.

According to their research, participants in athletics "with immense character strengths" actually tend to avoid competitive sports.

That's right.  If you subscribe to this train of thought, if you see someone who does not enjoy competition (specifically athletics), that person has a lot of strength in the ol' noggin.  This is an amazing thought when we consider begin to consider old phrases about how competition builds character, etc.

Along these lines, according to Ogilvie and Tutko, competition actually can fuel things such as depression, extreme stress, and the tendency to only have relatively shallow relationships.  Perhaps that may be a bit obtuse, but the theory seems to hold truth.

Look, we're all going to face competition.  And just because research shows something like this doesn't mean that we should give up competitive athletics.  What it does mean, however, is that a more conscious understanding of how our psyche works mixed with a greater awareness of what unchecked competition can do can prevent us from heading down this dangerous path.  Maybe it can help us actually indirectly build character.

I hope you enjoyed this look at self-esteem over the past few weeks.  Before we wrap it up, I want to credit Alfie Cohn's book "No Contest" as the inspiration and source for much of this information.  I'm sure I will continue to quote the book in future posts!

Winning has the potential to be an addiction.  If we look to an alcoholic drink as something we need for a way to relax, or if we look to a snort of cocaine for a quick high, we can do the same thing when we look to winning as a way to feel good about ourselves.

The addiction to winning is probably most similar to the addiction to gambling.  When we gamble, we never want to quit while we are ahead, nor do we ever think we can't win our money back when we lose.  As our winnings increase, we keep rolling the dice.  When we are down a significant amount, we think we are going to get on a role with the next hand of cards.

The same thing goes with winning.  After we win, we want to win more.  If we win a championship, we want to repeat, and we never want to walk away.  If we lose, we get back out there to prove ourselves because we never give up.  The cycle doesn't end.

Further, the more we reward being "number one," the more we contribute to the addiction of competition.

The problem continues when the pleasure from winning wears off faster and faster.  We compete again and again searching for that thrill, only to be disappointed when we don't get it from another victory.  We compare each championship to other championships and wonder why we are not as enthralled after gold medal.

The funny thing is that this phenomenon can happen in so many other places in life.  I can remember walking out of a movie that absolutely blew me away to the point of obsession that the sequel was a disappointment because it didn't do the same thing to me that the first movie did.  Is it fair to compare them that way?  How can one movie compete with its own sequel?

Competition is a funny thing.  Self-esteem should just be happy.

Remember playing "King of the Mountain" as a kid?  If you never did, here's how it works:  one person stands at the top of a large hill to defend it while other kids try to climb it and knock the kid at the top down the hill.  Then, whoever knocks the kid down stands at the top and defends the territory like the original kid did.  Frankly, it wouldn't be allowed today because it can get too physical, but you know there are kids playing it somewhere...

Competition is no different.  When we reach the pinnacle of the mountain, there is always a target on our back.  For teams that win championships, that target is known as "next year."  The defending champions have a very small amount of time to enjoy their championship before they have to defend it.  So our self-esteem might go up when we win, but it doesn't last long because we have to validate it again through the next competition.

Why, then, do we attach self-esteem to competition if we know that there will be a dip in it when the next season starts?  Why do we allow our self-esteem to go up when we win if we know we have to defend it from going down again?

Beware of the media!

No, this isn't anything political.  This is a wake-up call to how the media uses our self-esteem to play on how we receive stories in the business of making money.

How many times have you seen a movie where a character or a team had to overcome an obstacle or obstacles to find a victory?  Have you noticed that the number of obstacles is directly related to how good you feel after the big climax in the plot?  And how many of these situations revolve around a sports movie?

Most people find themselves rooting for the character(s) to succeed because they project themselves onto that group trying to overcome the odds to win the day.  And perhaps that's the goal of the transaction of paying for entertainment:  I give you $15 to go see a movie, and I want that movie to entertain me for two hours.  But we should beware!  This should not be a substitute or a model for our own lives.

Our self-esteem shouldn't correlate to a movie, whether it be due to our projection and investment into the plot or due to our demand for entertainment.  Further, our demand for these movies should reveal how actual competition does not fulfill our needs.

Is self-esteem conditional?  It shouldn't be.

Our psychological health should be unconditional.  It shouldn't be dependent on our experiences with wins and losses.  Losing, which happens more often than winning and can have a direct connection with low self-esteem, is an inherent part of competition.  So why do we let it affect our self-esteem if it is actually more common than we realize?

But the bigger question to ask is this:  is there reason to think that competition is always psychologically damaging to some degree?

If losing has the possibility of dragging us down, does winning have the possibility of uplifting us beyond what should feel good?  The rush of winning can lift us beyond our normal level of high self-esteem, almost to the point of looking down on our rivals.  There's nothing wrong with winning or enjoying it, but it stands to reason that it has the same potential that losing does to affect our psychological health.

No matter the situation or the outcome, our psyche should have little to no connection to the result or outcome of a competition.  It's okay to like winning, and it's okay to be a little down when you lose.  But put it in context of these discussions to make sure you still are okay with yourself!