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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20 Feb 2013, 12:04 pm
@The Sharks rugby pedigree is packaged as dog food-295:
Good enough for me.
Do you Okes have the death penalty.
20 Feb 2013, 12:04 pm
@gunther-298:
Rover.
Six love.
20 Feb 2013, 12:05 pm
@the curse-283: Exactly right the whole world is watching.
The wealth gap is magnified in SA and I feel very sad for the country because of that. It’s a problem all over the Western World and is getting worse by the day as the elite continue to steal from the those at the bottom.
I must say that the posters at Keo react a lot more maturely to the issues I just bought up than those on some other Rugby forums I could name.
20 Feb 2013, 12:05 pm
@RL-297: which by inference people with integrity won’t support the Kings.
Sorry Transie, that’s your prez speaking.
20 Feb 2013, 12:06 pm
Hehehe… Gunther’s on fire today…Oscar could certainly do with a gladdebek like that in his corner.
20 Feb 2013, 12:06 pm
@Muttonbird-303:
Ah.
So you are regular troll then?
20 Feb 2013, 12:07 pm
@Muttonbird-303: we’re just experienced after having to put up with Poops for the last couple of years.
20 Feb 2013, 12:09 pm
@cane-296: nah, but he was visibly upset as he didnt think this type of thing happened because SA had cleaned up its sport
20 Feb 2013, 12:09 pm
The sad thisng about this debarcle is that its all about him, Oscar. did he do it?? That is what is consuming everyone.
Sadly someone has died and it is them that deserves the attention, not this idiot.
Guilty or not he pulled the trigger, man slaugher or murder he will go away for a long time.
But this poor girl will never be back, shes gone.
20 Feb 2013, 12:12 pm
oscar’s lawyer getting fired up…
20 Feb 2013, 12:13 pm
@Transformation-300: To be honest: this fellas sh y te has been coming a long while. The ‘Untouchables’….
Watch how many crawl out of the woodwork now. The ex GF (Taylor). Her mother for certain after the comments she made (re: Oscar promising to see a psychologist etc) and much much more. I believe that even kids who were at school with him, are now saying what a ‘bully’ he was etc.
By the time this gets to trial – it is going to be 900000000000000000 pages worth of Jackie Collins trash, with all of us lapping it up daily.
When heroes shy t e gets real, it’s a whole new level of fascination. (Armstrong is delighted by this of course, his name hasn’t been mentioned anywhere in the world since last week….)
20 Feb 2013, 12:14 pm
@Rage-305:
I dunno what I would say.
I’d probably ask Botha if he ordered the Code Red on Private Santiago.
20 Feb 2013, 12:14 pm
@Transformation-310:
Is this stuff live on TV Transie?
20 Feb 2013, 12:15 pm
@Muttonbird-303: a new kiwi troll. You are a bird dressed in mutton. Won’t you get more “hits” if you were woollybird.
20 Feb 2013, 12:15 pm
@NZMaori-309: Exactly. That is the point I was making in my answer to ‘Muttonbird’ above.
It’s all about the fallen hero, not the fallen innocent.
20 Feb 2013, 12:16 pm
@Muttonbird-303: careful, just conversing with me on this blog is tantamount to signing your own death warrant..
they dont like the microscope on their own country but are quite willing to focus the lens on another..
I am honoured that I am public enemy number one here though..
I wear it with pride, or mana as we like to say
20 Feb 2013, 12:18 pm
@NZMaori-309: yeah mate…even hougie was traums at thr funeral yesterday.
20 Feb 2013, 12:19 pm
@RL-314: The damn sheepshaggers
20 Feb 2013, 12:19 pm
@the curse-316:
He’s very similar to you except he admits he’s a troll.
mana indeed.
20 Feb 2013, 12:21 pm
And so the new South Africa shows it’s face.
Gogo, 91, raped in KwaZulu-Natal 2013-02-20 10:03
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Pietermaritzburg – Yet another elderly woman has been raped in KwaZulu-Natal.
The 91-year-old victim was repeatedly raped by a knife-wielding man in her home at Pietermaritzburg on Sunday.
Police are appealing for information that could lead to the arrest of the rape suspect.
Police spokesperson Lieutenant Joey Jeevan said the elderly woman was about to go to bed in her one-room house in kwaDindi in the Vulindlela area at about 21:00 when she heard a knock on the door, and then another on the window. She ignored the knocking.
“A short while later she noticed an unknown knife-wielding man climb into her room, through the window.”
The man instructed her to lie down on her bed and cover her face with a blanket and then raped her several times until the early hours of Monday morning.
“It is further alleged that the man threatened her and demanded cash. She handed over R250 that she had under her pillow and he fled from the scene,” Jeevan said in a statement.
She said the woman was treated in hospital and discharged.
20 Feb 2013, 12:21 pm
@gunther-319: Maybe Muttonchops is Poops Girl Friend
20 Feb 2013, 12:21 pm
@gunther-319: surely Maevis has taught you never to admit anything Gunther?
20 Feb 2013, 12:22 pm
@Sharks_are_gonna_get_you-321: like the new niik bro, rugby talk get sick of you too?
20 Feb 2013, 12:23 pm
Roux making Botha concede more than a few things now. Won’t be enough for a scheduling reduction though?
Sheez, we’re in full trial mode in a Bail hearing. Unprecedented this.
Anyhow, where is my friend Bakkies. I want to reassure him re: the inherent goodness of man.
20 Feb 2013, 12:24 pm
@cane-301: Unfortunately not anymore.
It was done away with with the advent of the New!Improved! South Africa.
20 Feb 2013, 12:24 pm
@gunther-312: You can’t handle the truth!
20 Feb 2013, 12:24 pm
Roux is killing Botha. State on the ropes in a bail hearing…..?????
This is made for tv sh y te this.
20 Feb 2013, 12:25 pm
Defence ripping the cops testomony apart
20 Feb 2013, 12:26 pm
Botha admits to magistrate that he
“didn’t read the whole name” when
claiming testosterone found. Botha
on ropes, floundering.
10.22am GMT
— Daniel Howden
(@howden_africa)
February 20, 2013
Defence says police should never
have entered testosterone evidence.
It was testoconpasupium
20 Feb 2013, 12:27 pm
Defence attorney grouting his wet room with Hilty.
Police looking silly.
20 Feb 2013, 12:28 pm
@the curse-323:
This guppie swims round all the fish bowls on the interweb seeking justice for his ‘shorks: the best team to never win anything of substance – ever’.
(And he’s already warming up with a long list of unfortunate guppie injuries, which ‘can’ be used should the guppies not get off to a winning start in this tournie)
20 Feb 2013, 12:28 pm
@stormersboy-326:
You talking to Poepsie?
20 Feb 2013, 12:28 pm
@The Sharks rugby pedigree is packaged as dog food-327: Bail hearing to be cut from 12 days to 10?
20 Feb 2013, 12:30 pm
What do you expect from Afrikaners,MK .?They still revere Hansie Cronje ,the Afrikaner that brought shame to our country.Smit is just another English boy in their eyes. In their minds they still fighting the English in the Boer war. why is it that Andre Odendaal never receives the same vitriol as the Watsons. He basically went the same way in fighting the evil system. Wake up you farking idiots- the war finished in 1902!
20 Feb 2013, 12:31 pm
@gunther-330: Inge Lotz all over again……..and we’re not even in trial mode yet.
I withdraw my statement that Peruval might be a waste of time. If this is the way the state are going to roll, even Peruval will tear their forensics apart……
vd Nest on Ballistics has his work not only cut out, but hampered, but bumbling Lead investigator.
Make a movie someone, plz.
20 Feb 2013, 12:32 pm
@gunther-332: Poopsie is the capo poodle of kiwi bloggers
20 Feb 2013, 12:33 pm
@The Sharks rugby pedigree is packaged as dog food-331:
20 Feb 2013, 12:35 pm
@Transformation-329: Oh well then that changes everything. Let the poor fella go, he’s suffered enough.
20 Feb 2013, 12:35 pm
Roux: There could be a person with dangerous weapons in bathroom. “We have a person without his legs on wanting to protect himself and her.”
So dangerous he kaks himself and locks himself in the bathroom
20 Feb 2013, 12:35 pm
@Sharks_are_gonna_get_you-336:
go on son, you can do better then that surely?
oh wait
youre a sharks fan
hahaha but hey, A for effort
20 Feb 2013, 12:36 pm
@NZINCHINA-67: Jani Allan
20 Feb 2013, 12:37 pm
@Sharks_are_gonna_get_you-336: haha,Tyrone .you are so far stuck up Lambie’s a rse,it’s a miracle you still blog on rt and keo.
20 Feb 2013, 12:39 pm
@the curse-340:
Who is
“Sharks are gonna get you”?
20 Feb 2013, 12:40 pm
@cane-343: Sharks_Lover
he who sleeps with the fishes
20 Feb 2013, 12:42 pm
@BrumbiesBoy-333: Unreal. Purely from a judicial/legal perspective, this is breaking new ground sh y te this……
What I can’t understand, is how the SAP (after various bloopses/fuckups and embarassments……) manage to do it again? It’s usually left for the trial itself; their inevitable implosion on all things forensic etc etc etc.
Bail hearing BOOM.
(On a serious note: Miscarriages of justice in this country are no joke)
20 Feb 2013, 12:43 pm
@cane-343: Cane I am glad these W@nkers think i am SL, actually it’s all kinda funny
20 Feb 2013, 12:44 pm
this article was written on the come-down after the Luyt article. Keo got all Emo
20 Feb 2013, 12:44 pm
@Transformation-310: Tranny.Where are
you watching the trial?
20 Feb 2013, 12:44 pm
@the curse-344: @Sharks_are_gonna_get_you-336:
Welcome back sunshine.
20 Feb 2013, 12:46 pm
@Sharks_are_gonna_get_you-346:
Well you certainly are not Sharksgirl or Puma.
So I think they could be right!
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