The title of this writing sounds almost ridiculous. But it cannot be argued. Winners win games. Winning is what makes winners!
Coaches love to coach winners. Luck seems to follow them, teammates and fans rally around them, they make a habit of doing something everyone else wishes they could do. Heck, opponents even know when they’re playing against a winner and have alter their own style to try to prevent it which gives winners a psychological edge. Think about it this way. Winners concentrate on winning while losers concentrate on winners.
In the book “Things Your Coach Never Told You Because You’re a Girl” the author, Dan Blank, discusses a saying that he had within his teams: “Winners win, and Winners Win”.
Now, that sounds kind of crazy at first. But the first half of it, “winners win”, means that you don’t get to call yourself a winner unless you actually win. Moral victories don’t count. What winners do is they win games! The following “and winners win” is about the idea that no matter the circumstance winners always find a way. Winners do what? They win games, that’s what they do, And when things are tough a winner still finds a way to win games.
As a coach of young women i know that it’s possible to be too nice as a competitor. I see it all the time. A girl says she wants to win and means it, but has not yet learned that competition is not always happy and friendly. To win you will need to adjust your approach to give yourself as many advantages as the rules allow. Games are won in the gray areas. One player is just a little nastier when chasing that rebound, another player is just a more aggressive in attacking the basket and forcing contact, etc. If you’re not willing to approach the game and approach the competition by getting into those gray areas then you will lose to opponents who will go deeper into that gray era than you. You won’t be a winner, you’ll just be a nice player.
You have to make a decision. Are you a winner? Are you willing to take every millimeter that the rules enforcement will allow? Those are decisions you have to make. There’s really not much mystery when it comes to winning. Winners make a series of decisions that puts them in a position to win more than their opponents.
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