Well, it happened again: I missed June for the third time in
four years. I offer no excuses, but the
reasons were varied, ranging from yet another funeral trip to a massive load of
magazine writing, editing, and proofing, and scrambling to deliver The Next
Book.
Rather than comment on subjects that absolutely everybody
else is addressing these days—whether the perennial troubles besetting George
Zimmerman or the endless litany of government corruption—I sought a more
personal topic.
Recently I glimpsed a Youtube video of a drum and bugle
corps competition in the Midwest. That’s it! I thought. Competition often gets a bad name in the XXI
Century, but I’m convinced of its benefits and life lessons.
Now, I’m a low-key individual; ask anyone who knows me. Aside from occasional rants (still rare even
on this blog) I keep a low resting pulse rate, and my blood pressure is the
envy of my doctor’s clinic. After my
annual physical some years back I asked the doctor how I was doing. She said, “Barrett, you prove that 58 is the
new 57!”
But I do like to compete.
Maybe that’s normal for one of three sons, but I learned early on that I
was never going to beat Number Two academically. (He graduated Stanford with honors and became
a Rhodes Scholar.) However, in high
school I won state and regional events as a speaker, and I was a two-time
Oregon percussion champion--tenor and rudimental bass.
One of the vivid memories of my youth was standing in
formation after the state drum and bugle corps championship in 1964, my
freshman year in high school. The
Falcons never did well in field events but we were loaded with talent—one year
we astonished everyone (including ourselves) by taking more than half the
individual medals. Winners were called
front and center to receive their awards, and I’ll always remember the
adrenalin rush, the thrill as my name was announced. (Immediately followed by embarrassment as my
mother hollered from the grandstand.)
You’re heard of Little League Fathers and Soccer Moms? Trust me: they’re in the same genus as Drum Corps Parents.
Much later I won occasional rifle and pistol matches, and in
1997 I led the national championship team in cowboy action shooting. (I never got kissed that much since VJ-Day,
and I wasn’t at VJ-Day!)
I peaked as a competitive shooter between ages 47 and
49. In 1996 I shot the entire ten-stage
national championship with one miss, finishing 38th out of 400. That was a thrill, as I’d finally found the
optimum balance between speed and accuracy.
I knew that the rifle round fired from inside the stagecoach was a miss
when I touched it off, but I learned another lesson from competition: stay
focused on the immediate task or challenge.
You cannot undo what’s done, but you can try harder every time
henceforth.
Shooting a “clean match” at the 1998 Winter Range national
championships also was a highlight: hitting 176 targets in ten stages--on the
clock without a miss--was a record I could never beat and never tied.
Whether consciously or not, I think I was drawn to
non-cardio events as a way of compensating for my asthma limitations. I was never going to be an athlete, but I
could compete on even terms in debate and music, and to an extent in action
shooting.
Many of my friends are what you could call Intense
Competitors. One of my coauthors, a
professional fighter pilot and MiG killer, described himself as “safety wired
on the Intense setting.” He was in good
company. I remember Medal of Honor
aviator Joe Foss, that kind soul and Christian gentleman, only half-joking when
he said, “I can’t let my grandchildren win at Go Fish.”
And a shooting pal admitted, “I had to quit competing
because I was going to ruin some friendships.
I just could not stand to lose, even if I knew it was more my fault than
somebody else’s.”
In today’s PC era, when education is conducted by socialist
ideologues and emotional grass eaters in a carnivore world, we’re into the
second generation of the feel-good philosophy.
Without diverting to a Rant about outcome-based education, competition
has been downplayed across the fruited plain.
There was a time when you could feel good if you’d done your best; given
your full effort. Too often today, you
get a star on your chart or an attaboy if you showed up. Taken to extremes, I remember a P-38 ace who
looked at the beribboned airmen of the 1980s and exclaimed, “I guess the Air
Force gives medals for perfect attendance.”
Recently I saw The
Magnificent Seven again. Steve
McQueen (Vin) allows that more than the money, he enjoys the gunfighting trade
for the competition involved. Yul
Brenner (Chris) describes James Coburn (Britt) as the best of the best, with
knife or gun. One of the Mexican
villagers seeking to hire the gunnies asks, “If he is the best with a knife and
with a gun, with whom does he compete?”
Chris gives a knowing grimace. “With himself.”
There’s wisdom in that line.
The concept of competing with yourself is often characterized as seeking
a new “personal best.” It applies across
the board, from golf to combat, and more than one warrior has said, “War is a
full-contact sport.”
It’s no original thought to conclude that we learn more from
losing than from winning. And in sports since
nobody wins all the time (excepting Rocky Marciano), every competitor knows
going in that he or she will lose at some point.
Yet we see “coaches” who value artificial self esteem over
accomplishment. As if it’s possible to
protect youngsters from the inevitability of losing. It’s not only Mission Impossible, it’s
downright harmful.
Winning is more fun than losing, but the joy in competing is
in accomplishment. We set our own
standards, and the lessons learned from early competition can provide lessons
that can last a lifetime.
