There was a time – not so long ago – when squash court floors were painted white. Usually, the paint had a glossy finish that often made the floors slippery – particularly if the courts were not maintained on a regular basis. So, in order to combat the slick surface, some facilities mixed sand into the paint to help provide traction. Such was the case on my high school courts, where I first started to play the game at all seriously.
The traction was better than it would have been without the grit mixed into the paint, no question, but it also effectively created a sandpaper-like surface that wore away shoes in just a couple of matches and honed the edges of our wood racquets until their heads became as sharp as knife blades.
When I had my first challenge match to make the varsity, I was determined. I had played soccer goalie enough that I had an instinct to dive. You probably see where this is headed… if you think diving on sandpaper sounds painful, you are right. But dive I did.
After the match, I sat in the trainer’s room with bloody knees, bloody elbows, and abrasions on my hips. The most painful, though, was my racquet hand; I had ripped open the entire knuckle of my pinky finger. The combination of the injuries hurt a lot, and I was crying. The trainer, needless to say, thought that the tears were a result of pain mixed with the frustration of losing. But here is the odd thing: I had won the match.
As I look back on that match, I am filled with wonder about my motivation: what the heck drove me to keep playing despite the obvious physical pain? Why did I continue to dive as though my life depended on winning that match? Why was it so important that I gave myself scars on my knees and hand that exist to this day?
Almost fifteen years ago, I read a biography about Larry Bird, the basketball player, where the author wrestled with the notion of Bird’s motivation to excel. I wish I could find the book to properly credit the author, but he came up with a notion that I believe he termed the “love-deficit factor.” I remember thinking that it had applicability not only to the Larry Birds of the world, but also to the confused teenagers who push themselves to dangerous limits.
The idea was based on the fact that Larry Bird’s parents had been divorced, and he had struggled with shyness with women. He had his heart broken a number of times, but eventually got married. The marriage gradually collapsed and his wife left him.
The author of the biography posited that Bird used basketball to overcome a number of things brought on by the love-deficit factor: by spending excessive hours in solitary, but very structured, practice sessions, he was able to exert the control that he could not in his love life; by working harder than others, he was able to prove to himself that there were ways to overcome weaknesses and problems; by dominating opponents, he was able to prove to himself that he had value in comparison to others; by winning, he was able to use the public adulation to replace his private self-loathing.
This is strong stuff, but it rings true. I don’t know enough about Larry Bird to have any idea if it is factually correct in his particular case, but the theory makes intuitive sense to me. The question for elite athletes isn’t really “why is winning so important?” but rather “why is losing so unacceptable?”
If we adopt the love-deficit factor, we can see that to someone who already is caught up in self-worth issues, losing can seem like the world falling apart. “No one loves me and I can’t even win a match.” And with the difference between winning and losing often being miniscule, if one person’s very identity is caught up in whether the result is a win, while the other person takes a loss in stride, what do you think the result is likely to be?
This, of course, is where love becomes a really big factor. In boxing, trainers don’t want their fighters dating. Period. Why not? Because if the boxer knows that – win or lose –the girl is still going to love him, losing isn’t quite so bad. And that, in boxing, is tantamount to throwing in the towel.
Chris Evert, not too long ago, was talking about one of the top woman tennis players, when she said: “Let’s see what happens when she learns that there is more to life than just forehands and backhands. Let’s see what happens when she falls in love.”
But all this makes love sound like it is a recipe for losing. Perhaps there is some validity to that viewpoint for sheer athletic success. But let’s remember that there isn’t an athlete out there who doesn’t want to love and be loved more than anything else. And here is an important secret: we all lose eventually (okay, maybe not Heather MacKay).
So, with that in mind, continue to seek out the love of your life or continue to value it if you have it. It is what makes life worth living. Happy Valentine’s Day.
