The Game, the Refs, Kids and the Code

We did not see the game, but we understand it was close all the way, that a record number of fouls were called – 22 on each team – and that North Carolina won.  The one thing that is certain in any game is you don’t know what will happen (even on those occasions when we are sure who will win it) – we don’t know who will play well, who will play poorly, whether we will have good luck, or bad luck, or whether the referees will make a few bad calls or not.  That’s why we play the game, because there are an infinite number of variables, and we never know what will happen.   I remember a five year old kid running up to his mother who was picking him up after a soccer game and saying excitedly, “we scored three goals!!”  His mother later discretely asked another mother, “how many did the other team score?”  “About 20!” was the answer.  There is a lesson there for all of us to remember: we compete because more than winning or losing we want to have fun, we want to test our skills against a worthy opponent, and we want to make our best effort both individually and as a member of a team.  Sports is always about “winning more than the game!”