Why winning isn’t everything
20 Feb 2013
MARK KEOHANE, in his Business Day Sport Monthly column, says we live in a miracle country and it’s time we started appreciating the miracle of sport.
Sport is entertainment and it is also about effort. A fixation with just the result is going to lead to a lot of heartache.
It wasn’t that long ago when South Africa wasn’t allowed to compete internationally. Familiarity breeds contempt and irrationally so.
Feel good about the joy of indulging in the performance of South Africans, who are among the best ever produced in their respective codes.
We put huge pressure on our performers to produce every time, but the fans and the media have as much of a responsibility in their performance post match.
We also need to grow up and show some perspective to the effort of the individual or team and give credit to the quality of the opposition. There are times when they just are better and they actually win and we actually lose.
For those who are inspired to live in this country only when South Africa wins, take some responsibility for your own emotions. Similarly, don’t blame a poor SA performance for your depression. No player is losing deliberately and no national player should be subjected to the hate and vitriol published on Twitter.
It sickens me that people can actually feel a justification in the abuse and believe they are owed something by the player and that the player has a responsibility to ensure their happiness. The abuse is disgusting and can never be justified. There is so much to applaud and there is a generation of South African performer that is the best ever produced in this country. What a privilege it is to watch them at their peak.
Look beyond the need for a winning result and imagine South Africa being in sporting isolation. It is pathetic how fans think players are there to instil nationalism. Go do that yourself and start enjoying the sport and keep perspective.
There is life the next day and sport always gives your team or the individual a chance to get it right or to flop.
It is an honour to play for one’s country, but it is not a crime to lose and supporters need to take their insecurity and deal with it.
In the days of isolation we never played anyone and never lost. So we allowed ourselves to believe we were the best in everything. The reality is we are not the best in all things sport and that does not deserve the crassness I read on Twitter.
I get irritated with a lot of our sports media coverage, especially in newsprint. It is always all or nothing, as if every win defines the miracle of this country and defeat brings the possibility of doom. Inspire me with a solution instead of repeating what I saw on television 24 hours earlier and what I have read on the Internet a day earlier.
The media is more guilty than the fans in the buzz and the blowout. I have been as guilty as anyone at times of my career so I certainly don’t preach from a pedestal of purity, but rather from a place of apology.
The daily sports media though need to get a grip and invest in some perspective.
An example was the Proteas ODI series defeat against New Zealand. The Proteas did not play well but the game was apparently in crisis after the series defeat and the euphoria of being the best Test team in the world a few days earlier was an afterthought.
The hysteria was excessive, just like the condemnation and ridicule of New Zealand’s tour only a few days earlier. Appreciate the players and the fact that it’s not you out there on days when all is failing save the potency of the opponent.
There’s an added spice when you know you are watching a performer unrivalled in their field and at the peak of their performance.
The South African bowling attack gives me that sense of awe. Hashim Amla and Jacques Kallis evoke a similar emotion and Graeme Smith is just never going to get the reward for his effort. No other Test captain in the history of the game has achieved as much.
Smith, having gone past 100 Test matches as captain, still has his doubters. Give him a break. There is a serious projection of insecurity and delusion among many of the South African fans in the way they react to the players.
A guy like Smith must be judged on how he plays and not for how his gum chewing may irk you. It is massive what he has achieved yet there are so many who burden him with not wearing enough flags on his T-shirt and not being proudly South African.
This is sport. Nationalism looks after itself and it can’t be all taken from the player’s performance. We owe the player the simple courtesy of a dignified interaction that does not start with an attack on his mother’s hair colour and outright abuse.
Grow up you trolls or inspire with your cleverness.
Oh, and one last thing, why the obsession with having to feel the need to retire great players at the start of a season because they are supposedly blocking the path of a 21-year-old?
Give the more mature form players the necessary respect. They’ve earned the right through performance to a bit of loyalty. Our rugby players offer the promise of silverware in Super Rugby but the enjoyment must also be in the performance.
Bafana, in African soccer’s big bi-annual one, were brave and belligerent in a tournament I hoped they could win but never quite had the conviction to believe it was possible. They lost in the quarter-finals on penalties, which was a cruel yet also a dignified exit for the hosts. Dignified in it allowed us to dream of what could have been without confronting the reality of what would most likely have been had they advanced to the semi-final or final.
Bafana played with passion and the support of a nation was a boost, but there are limitations to the current side and the desire to associate with success should also not be confused with the expectation that if they don’t win a tournament they have failed.
Equally our Super Rugby teams.
– This article first appeared in the March issue of Business Day Sport Monthly, which is distributed FREE with the newspaper on the second last Friday of every month.
1,128 Comments
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21 Feb 2013, 12:18 pm
@S_K-848: looks like the lottery system drew a dozen Bakkies -like jurors.
21 Feb 2013, 12:20 pm
@Dilligafrican-850: is there any record of him “warning” the intruder first?
or did he just blindly fire shots?
never been in the situation, but I like to think I would have at least said something first rather then just firing blindly… this imo points to a serious problem for Oscar if he didnt say anything first
21 Feb 2013, 12:20 pm
@CharlesM-839: I think Deon is past learning to be a decent line out thrower. As you say, some can and some never get it, Deon unfortunately looks destined to be one of the latter.
Scarra also struggles, which has me concerned.
The first job is to get the basics right, regardless of all the other stuff,
I think Deon should be at 6. Finish and klaar.
21 Feb 2013, 12:22 pm
@nama1-820:
My gut feel is that Oscar Pistolero is guilty of premeditated murder.
After seeing the house plan?
- There is only one way into the bathroom ensuite,……….. from the bedroom.
- Oscar wakes up alone in the bed………………………………….sees that Ms Steenkamp is somewhere else.
- He then precedes to the bathroom, where he fires at least 3 shots through the toilet door.
Is he that thick, that he didn’t think to ask?
…………………………..” Is that you in the dunny darling” .
Where did he think she was?
In the tool shed.
21 Feb 2013, 12:23 pm
@the curse-852:
Exactly Popps.
21 Feb 2013, 12:24 pm
@cane-854: great minds bro, just asked the same question though yours was much more eloquent, which surprised me that anyone from the Hutt could be that eloquent
Im inclined to agree with you after also seeing the floor plan to the bedroom and ensuite..
21 Feb 2013, 12:28 pm
@cane-854:
what’s worse is that he claimed to have shouted at the “intruder” before he opened fire.
Surely she would have shouted something back?
IMO the phone records will reveal all.
21 Feb 2013, 12:29 pm
@BrumbiesBoy-835: nope, not bad oke, & a hero to some:
“Of Botha, Winston Churchill wrote in Great Contemporaries, “The three most famous generals I have known in my life won no great battles over a foreign foe. Yet their names, which all begin with a ‘B”, are household words. They are General Booth, General Botha and General Baden-Powell…” ”
But not liked by others:
” In 1911, together with another Boer war hero, Jan Smuts, he formed the South African Party, or SAP [forerunner of the United Party; that whole SAP vs. NAT thing our (predominantly white) forebears were involved in]. Widely viewed as too conciliatory with Britain, Botha faced revolts from within his own party and opposition from James Barry Munnik Hertzog’s National Party. When South Africa obtained dominion status in 1910, Botha became the first Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa.”
At the outbreak of the First World War he had to contend with & put down the “Boere Rebellie” (you recall Bok van Blerk’s song, ‘De la Rey, De la Rey’?):
“After the Maritz (Boer) rebellion was suppressed, the South African army continued their operations into German South West Africa and conquered it by July 1915.
Compared to the fate of the ringleaders of the Easter Rising in Ireland in 1916, the leading Boer rebels got off relatively lightly with terms of imprisonment of six and seven years and heavy fines. Two years later they were released from prison, as Louis Botha recognised the value of reconciliation.”
21 Feb 2013, 12:29 pm
@the curse-852: I haven’t seen any reports of him having given any “warnings” first.
I’ve read how he’s said that the bathroom “was in total darkness and I couldn’t/didn’t? see whether Reeva was in bed or not…”
However it seems he had no problem finding his gun under the bed in the same darkness and even when he bent down to reach for it, he still couldn’t see whether she was in bed or not?
Ja Pinnochio.
21 Feb 2013, 12:29 pm
Little Horse boy will not be happy with old Tank.
And seemingly just like that, it’s Pat Lambie v Johan Goosen, Duane Vermeulen v Pierre Spies, Elton Jantjies v Morne Steyn and Robert Ebersohn taking on Francois Steyn!
I can actually picture Gordon Bray, one of the greatest commentators the world has ever seen, shedding tears of sheer passion as he goes through his “Mate against mate, state against state” introduction to the weekend…
This is Super Rugby people – the greatest tournament on Earth… Well, if you took away the dreadful Aussie derbies and the fact that the top three in each Conference are guaranteed a prime spot in the appallingly named “Finals series”…
21 Feb 2013, 12:29 pm
@the curse-856:
Dunny……………………………………really eloquent.
21 Feb 2013, 12:32 pm
@the curse-856:
How dare you
What are you implying about the Hutts
21 Feb 2013, 12:34 pm
@S_K-860:
Did you see how quickly the Lions tour to Aussie sold out?
Silly boy.
21 Feb 2013, 12:34 pm
@cane-861: your use of the Saffa vernacular was spot on I thought..
@BrumbiesBoy-859: if he’s always had his gun there then I dont see it being a problem in locating it when needed..
but yep, you would know as soon as you awoke whether there was someone laying in bed with you surely?
21 Feb 2013, 12:35 pm
@BrumbiesBoy-859:
“was in total darkness and I couldn’t/didn’t? see whether Reeva was in bed or not…”
Can’t have that dark……………………………..It would seem not many bullets missed.
Guilty.
21 Feb 2013, 12:36 pm
@Dawn-862:
Hi Dawn.
21 Feb 2013, 12:37 pm
@the curse-852:
he shouted at the intruder in his statement.
21 Feb 2013, 12:37 pm
@Dawn-862:
now now, I didnt say Cory, but Id hazard a guess that the odds are fairly high in regards to that man
21 Feb 2013, 12:38 pm
@cane-854: ” Is he that thick, that he didn’t think to ask?
…………………………..” Is that you in the dunny
darling” .
Where did he think she was?
In the tool shed.”
in his sworn statement he says he ONLY checked for her after blasting the crapper!
21 Feb 2013, 12:38 pm
@cane-865:
Ooops, post 865 ………..should read “can’t have BEEN that dark”.
21 Feb 2013, 12:39 pm
@CharlesM-839: What is perhaps more unfair is to get a hooker who has proven he cannot throw in ball, to practice throwing in a ball, & then to select him as hooker only to show once again that he cannot throw in a ball.
Why even select him as hooker?
Any way I truly hope he proves us (the sceptics) wrong, coz other than that he is pretty good & very exciting player.
21 Feb 2013, 12:41 pm
What I can gather from the article is that keo wants South Africans to be like the government..accept ineptitude and take any old thing that is thrown our way…embrace mediocrity like a blanket of faeces.
21 Feb 2013, 12:41 pm
@gunther-867: havent seen his statement so thanks. Was she too scared to reply then?
21 Feb 2013, 12:42 pm
@Transformation-869:
Good luck this weekend Transie.
A momentous day for EP.
21 Feb 2013, 12:43 pm
@cane-865: He also “can’t remenber” at what point he turned the lights on.
He also claimed “to have gone out to fetch a fan from the balcony and to close the balcony door & blinds and that must’ve been Reeva gott up to go to the bathroom”…
Pure coincidence of course that she woke up, then got up to go to the bathroom at the EXACT time that he was outside?
Pinnochio.
21 Feb 2013, 12:44 pm
@the curse-873:
Scared of him?
I guess.
If she thought there was a robber in the house she would surely have shouted back?
Very snoeky.
21 Feb 2013, 12:46 pm
@BrumbiesBoy-875: “…and that must’ve been when Reeva got up…”
21 Feb 2013, 12:46 pm
12:38 – Roux: State cannot factually contradict Oscar Pistorius version of events – so he should get bail.
21 Feb 2013, 12:46 pm
@gunther-876: I agree. but if he went outside then came back in, he must have walked past the bed, by which time his eyes should have adjusted to the lack of light..
only further incriminates him in a premeditated attack imho.
21 Feb 2013, 12:49 pm
@cane-874: thanks Caner!
been in the trenches since 2005 now to make history!
aluta continua!
21 Feb 2013, 12:50 pm
@the curse-879:
Agreed looks dodgy as fark.
21 Feb 2013, 12:50 pm
A man always knows where his gun is.
Even in the dark.
Anyway. Given the SAP cockup, Oscar will sprint.
21 Feb 2013, 12:51 pm
@Angostura-858:
Re the Botha’s of SA:
PW Botha- infamous
Naas Botha- infamous except in Pretoria
Bakkies Botha- same as Naas
Pik Botha- mmmmm… tough call… let’s say famous.
Calla Botha- infamous
Frans Botha- infamous (for being as thick as a brick or a Rhino skin)
Hardy Botha- Famous
Piet Botha- Legend
Hilton Botha- the jury is still out
a motley crew indeed.
21 Feb 2013, 12:52 pm
I think Tac would agree that Hilton Botha is a very tappit name.
21 Feb 2013, 12:55 pm
@Robzim-883:
And Bakkies Botha formerly know as Houston?
21 Feb 2013, 12:55 pm
@cane-854:
But if it was premedidated, it means that he must’ve planned it all night. Aware that she sometime/always woke up in the middle of the night to take a wee, he himself woke up before she did, stepped out onto the balcony where he waited until he heard her enter the toilet, got his gun and proceeded to fire four shots into the toilet, hoping/(knowing?) that at least one will kill her.
That’s what you’re saying?
21 Feb 2013, 12:56 pm
@Robzim-883: johan botha? gary botha? bj botha?
21 Feb 2013, 12:56 pm
@Robzim-883:
Durbanville is like Pretoria only with better weather.
21 Feb 2013, 12:56 pm
@Robzim-883: you forgot Bothalezi
21 Feb 2013, 12:57 pm
@Robzim-883: Yes Rob, I had the same feelings when considering Pik!
21 Feb 2013, 12:57 pm
@Dawn-882:
Oscar will most likely get bail.
But that will his only win,
in this sad and sorry affair.
21 Feb 2013, 12:57 pm
@Angostura-889:
21 Feb 2013, 13:03 pm
@Robzim-883: Pik Botha definitely famous …
in the lady’s boudoir (not unlike Dr Chris Barnard & FW de Klerk)
21 Feb 2013, 13:03 pm
@Angostura-889: is that the ghey female version?
21 Feb 2013, 13:08 pm
@the curse-894: neeman, watse “ghey” issit met jou, huh?
ghey donderbalkie, ghey bliksemstraaltjie
enigste lig in donker Afrika?
die Bothas!
21 Feb 2013, 13:16 pm
@Angostura-895: pardon?
was but a joke, chill mon
21 Feb 2013, 13:17 pm
@nama1-886:
My understanding nama, is that the shots were fired from the bathroom, through the toilet door.
The only way into the bathroom and toilet, is through the bedroom.
How many of us would pump 4 shots through a door, not knowing who was on the other side?
Not many I would hope.
21 Feb 2013, 13:25 pm
@nama1-886:
No it doesn’t.
Premeditation doesn’t imply a specific period of time.
21 Feb 2013, 13:30 pm
@Angostura-808: Hi Pal.I am serious.
The wing stood “wydsbeen”with the ball held in 2 hands at about
knee level,and lobbed the ball in.I am a mine of useless(but true)info.
Skop should be able to confirm.
21 Feb 2013, 13:36 pm
@ryecatcher-899: Keep up Kehla… You only about 100 posts behind…
Hope you said you 20 Hail Sharks to atone for that sporadic Stormerlike emo-ness I last saw from you…
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