Coachspeak Part III - “Must win”

“Tonight is a must-win game. We must win this one…there is no alternative.” 

As opposed to what?

Do we ever stop for a moment and consider that there may be an alternative to these types of phrases? Are they so engrained in our lexicon as coaches that we have no choice but to dust them off come February and March for our, “big games.” 

What makes one game any bigger or more of a must win than any other? Do we miss the point entirely when we prescribe meaning to one game as being more important than practice or how we “win,” on a daily basis?

Let’s frame this another way: Is there such thing as a must-lose? Or an “okay with losing,” if we go that route? Is there such a thing as a practice that we “must” win? Do we even consider practice as something that we can win and lose? 

I know I raise a lot of questions in this blog as this is a piece of reflection for me. I cannot fathom how much damage we have done to athletes and to our teams by saying those phrases that, while seemingly innocent, create a mythical specter of importance on a particular opponent, date, location, and time. The teams we play against are merely our training partners in our ever-longing quest to improve at what we do. Kyle mentioned, in his last blog, about playing against the standard WE have for ourselves. How then, do we have “must-wins,” and not? Is not then every day an opportunity to win because we are playing against ourselves? The urgency of “must” creates a false duality - that there is a time when we don’t actually have to improve our standard and we can get by, and then there’s a time where we have to do everything right. 

Well…character is the repeatability of positive habits. So, by creating a situation where we use the term “must win,” - are we allowing our character to drop inadvertently by creating a station where it has to rise with urgency for one game? Something to think about. 

We will cover survive and advance next time. That should be a GREAT conversation!