Joel Tichinoff, Editor-in-Chief
Winning isn’t everything but does anyone play to lose? Do we ever just play for the sake of playing? We can’t help but want to succeed in anything we do. There’s nothing wrong with losing. Not if it’s done properly. A proper loss is taken not as failure but to imply a need for improvement, it presents an opportunity, a reason to be better than we were. A win is conformation of that improvement, a win justifies the effort of training with accomplishment. It is proof of ability, of capacity for excellence. A win reminds us that all our goals and aspirations are within reach, that we too have a claim to victory and success. And so, we like winning.
Perhaps the greatest difference between the playing fields of sports and the playing fields of life is that within the boundaries of sports there exists a reasonable expectation that victory will belong to those who deserve it most; the wins and losses of life are not always so fairly decided. In sports we know that hard work will always be rewarded, a last place team can rise, and defeat today does not rule out the chance for victory tomorrow. In sports, by definition, a player is someone who wins and loses; if we couldn’t be beaten, if the outcome was never in question, then the purpose of the game is defeated. As players, we will always try to win, but try with the understanding that the attempt is all we are entitled to. If we understand that the primary purpose of sports is to try, to do our best regardless of the outcome, then winning and losing become secondary. If we accept that there will be wins and there will be losses, that best and worst are relative, then we are left with the question of how we play the game, how we test the quality ourselves against successes and failures, gauge our personal endeavor towards improvement; the character we show regardless of the score. The quality of character we call sportsmanship. Sportsmanship is the drive to persevere through adversity, acceptance of the rules of fair-play, the understanding of oneself and our individual failures and successes are tied to a greater whole.
It is a common saying at Dal that we can be proud of the fact that we have no school pride, that no one here cares, it’s just a school. We come here, often from away, we go to class; we make some friends, we read some books, we throw some parties and then we move on with our lives being able to say we went to Dal without thinking any more or less of ourselves because of it. We study at a fine, long-established, respected institute for higher learning, why make a big deal out of it? School spirit; can we really be expected to pay homage to some non-physical, intangible idea of emotion and character dedicated to the presumption that there’s something special about this place and, by implication, us? Well, why not?
We do. We wear DAL on our clothes, we know our colours are Black and Gold. We like our ivey-clad stone buildings at the top of the hill by the sea. We like that they were built as monuments to us, to our learning, our work towards improving ourselves. We like that Dal exists as a time and space for us to experiment, to grow, to test ourselves, to fail and to succeed. We like that Dal exists as a gathering place of youth and wisdom, energy and ideas, knowledge and potential from across Canada and around the world. We understand this place, and ourselves within it. We all know the Dawgfather, we all get lost in the LSC. We’re happy to be a part of it. Admit it, we like Dal.
It’s no accident that there is a connection between universities and sports in North America. One is dedicated to training the mind, the other to training the body and both contribute to the development of character. It’s hard to imagine that if universities did not support athletics programs that students wouldn’t create their own based around the campus community. It’s impossible to have so many young people together in one place without them getting together to be active and have fun sooner or later. It’s also no accident that the schools with the greatest sense of community are the ones where varsity sports are considered ‘important’ pieces of the campus experience. The campus rallies behind their teams out sense of shared belonging to the community, a feeling that something is at stake on the field for them as well. That the teams’ success, the teams failure, the teams’ trials belong to the whole, rely on the whole, that the team roster extends beyond the sidelines, that these players play for us, represent us, and deserve our support.
Ask yourself was when the last time you were together with a large group on campus not because you were in the same class or the same year or the same residence or the same bar. When do we ever get Arts students, Science students, Medical students, Engineers, alumni, administration, societies and faculty together in one space together? That is, when does our community truly gather around one common cause?
Will football bring back Dalhousie spirit? No. But it will provide an opportunity, a space for the entire Dal community to gather together around something and that something will not be football so much as the idea that there is something special about this place that we all share in and belong to. Do we care? We’re going to find out.
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