Opinion by J1 reporter Moira Harr

I love sports. Always have. Ever since I was 3, I have been in some sort of sports season, dabbling in many sports and sticking with the ones I had a passion for. Sports have taught me countless life skills and lessons such as teamwork, collaboration, discipline, work-ethic, communication, problem solving, winning and losing graciously and so much more. The point I’m trying to make is that I am not anti-sports. 

That being said, I believe that as a culture we take sports too seriously and that the environment we have created around sports is damaging, especially to youth players. 

In this environment that has been created, winning is the all-consuming, sole priority. Athletes carry an immense amount of pressure that comes from parents, coaches, teammates, and themselves. Pressure to win, no matter the cost physically or mentally.

Sports at their core are meant to be a fun way to stay active, compete, work together, and develop skills. Overemphasizing the desire to win is taking away the most important aspect of the game: having fun. 

Wanting to win in itself isn’t a bad thing. It’s natural to most people. Healthy competition is good. It becomes a problem when the wanting to win overtakes all of the other reasons to play. 

The consequences to this mindset of winning no matter what are numerous. It fosters burnout among athletes as they don’t take the rest they need, and it encourages them to push through initial pain, leading to more serious injury later.

The pressure and disappointments athletes face can be overwhelming and can be detrimental to their mental health, which affects other aspects of their life. 

Often it causes athletes to make sports their full focus and they ignore or fall behind in other aspects of their life. It can also encourage unsportsmanlike behavior and habits of disrespectfulness to officials, opponents, teammates, or coaches. 

But why? Why must you always win? There are a lot of different answers to this. Some want a scholarship; sports are a key part of their planned future. Some want to make someone else proud of them. A common, unspoken reason which comes from the environment itself is that many athletes tie their self-worth to their playing time, win record, ability and performance. 

Regardless of why someone has this mindset, it isn’t healthy and there needs to be a reevaluation of the priorities of the game. Be competitive, be active, be hard-working, but don’t make other people or yourself miserable because of it. After all, at the end of the day, it really is just a game.