Unhappy with a Hat Trick?

Hadley hates losing. No, I mean she really, really hates losing. In the semi-finals of their weekend tournament today, they got thoroughly spanked by a team in the top division and she was as mad after the game as I’ve ever seen her (about soccer, anyway). At least some of the parents know this and are accustomed to it. As she was walking purposefully (i.e., storming) off the field today, one of the parents told her she played well. Her response was “mmthxmm” and she didn’t even look up at him ... or slow down. He smiled and, I’m sure, chalked it up to Hadley being Hadley (note: I absolutely LOVE the parents of the kids on our team). I’ve told Hadley this is rude and she needs to be a bit more gracious, and actually she usually does pretty well with that. I guess today was just too much.

About a month ago, Hadley’s coach sent me a message after one of their tournament games. They had just tied a game, hadn’t played particularly well, and of course Hadley was not real happy with that. At all. He knows how competitive she is and requested that she write a paragraph about why she loves winning and hates losing so much (I believe he read it to the team at halftime of the next game). I’ve shared this with a few people but thought I’d go ahead and include it in the blog for Posterity’s sake. So here it is:

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Why I Love Winning So Much and Hate Losing So Much

by Hadley Wilkins

I love winning because it makes me feel really good. I love competing and I don't understand why people would play if they don't think winning is the most important thing ever. I like running down the field and hearing people cheer. I don't like it when people just jog after balls because you're just going to lose if you don't hustle. I love winning and I like winning by a whole lot, not just 2-1 or something because that means that you're really a lot better than the other team.

I hate ties and I don't understand why we don't always do penalty kicks if there is a tie. I hate seeing the other team score and cheer and brag and jump all over each other and I really, really hate the feeling I have when we walk off the field after losing. I don't really like people telling me that I played a good game after we lost because obviously we didn't play good enough.

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The reason I returned to this writeup for today’s entry relates to their first tournament game on Saturday morning. In the opening round, Hadley’s team played a team from Waco that was comprised of younger (by a year or two) girls. We didn’t really play well at all, but it didn’t matter. We won 3-0 and Hadley scored all three goals. After the game, I asked her what she thought about it and she didn’t seem excited at all. She actually seemed down. When I pressed her on it, she said she hoped they would play girls their own age in the next round because playing the younger girls didn’t seem fair.

Excuse me?

Whatever happened to “I love winning and I like winning by a whole lot”? And maybe even more telling, whatever happened to wanting to score a lot? When Hadley was 6, her team won a game by forfeit and while all of the other girls were jumping up and down and cheering because they could go back home and watch cartoons and play with their dolls, Hadley was sitting on the ground by herself, crying because she wanted to play (translated: she wanted to score). And in what quite possibly could be the best coaching line to date, in Saturday’s second round game Hadley’s coach told one of the other girls who has a very strong leg but isn’t quite as offensively minded as she probably should be that she “needs to want to shoot like Hadley does!!”

Thoroughly. Awesome.

Hadley has gotten waaaaaay better about passing the ball during the past 2-3 years, but still ... she’s never seen a shot she didn’t like. So that’s why I couldn’t quite wrap my arms around her being disappointed about getting a hat trick against a worse team. I guess it’s just a part of the maturation process. And obviously maturing is good. Now if we can just work on extending it to post-game interactions with well-meaning adults ... :)

Finally, lest you think that Hadley is getting tooooooo mature, the pre-game McDonald’s hotcakes-and-sausage conversation should ease your mind:

Me: So did you know anybody from yesterday afternoon’s team?

Hadley: Yeah ... one girl is Molly’s sister.

Me: Molly? (thinking ... best friends are Athena, Sidney, and Lauren)

Hadley: Yeah ... you know, Molly ... our codename for (insert name of Boy X)

Me: You have a codename for this boy?

Hadley: Yeah, so he doesn’t know we’re talking about him.

Me: Is he cute?

Hadley: I think so. Athena thinks he’s more off and on.

Me: Are you gonna marry him?

Hadley: I dunno. Probably not.

Me: Why?

Hadley: Because I don’t know what he’s gonna do or what he’s gonna look like.

Me: (laughing)

Hadley: I’m going to marry a guy who is super-good looking and super-rich so I can just be a teacher or something.

Me: Nice to have aspirations.

Hadley: Yeah, but I’ll get my Ph.D. anyway just to make myself feel good.

Awesome.