I love winning. Anyone that knows me in any context knows that I love winning, I love winning arguments, I love winning games, I love winning ice breakers, I love winning coin flips, I love winning bets. And anyone that truly knows me knows that the one thing that I hate most in the world is losing.
That is, until I met SOLES Softball. Early in my first year at USD for my masters program, I found that people in the program were forming a softball team, so I messaged the captain and joined. I soon learned that our team's priority wasn't to win it, we were there to have fun with each other and hang out, outside the context of classes and such. It was hard for me to accept, and after a half dozen of phone calls to my mom after losing, I was challenged to question why winning was so important to me.
I mean, if we tweaked our line up a bit, and played boy-boy-girl like every other team instead of boy-girl-boy-girl, then we'd win for sure right? Then as I looked around one day after a loss and everyone was smiling, I started to really understand that it wasn't the fact that we lost that I was mad, it was my mentality after the loss that made me mad.
Each season we've gotten better and better, we've made the playoffs each of the 5 semesters I've played in, but it wasn't really until this season where I realized that the priority was loving one another. We have fun on the field win or lose, and we have fun off the field (especially at a nearby bar called sidebar). I love these guys so much, and they've taught me a lesson that I don't think I'd be able to learn elsewhere.
Win or lose, it's not the score that matters but the people you're with.
GO SOLES Sistas and Mistas!
