
So I'm sure you might have heard, but LSU lost this past weekend to Arkansas. (Congratulations Rupps and Harrigans). I was there in person to see my Tigers' National Championship hopes get shot down in a big stinking pile of Darren McFadden's Woo-Pig-Sooie. I've been a little bummed and I've moped around a bit, but not as much as you would think. Why is that? Because I've taught myself how to deal with the emotional upheaval of losing. It's taken me 30 years, but I think I have finally discovered the art of losing.
I've been going to LSU games with my family since I was 5. LSU football is a big part of who I am. It represents much more than a game to me. In many ways, it's been my heritage, my family, and my identity. When I go down to Baton Rouge to see a game, I get to see my grandparents, aunts and uncles, and cousins from both my mom and my dad's side of the family. For a brief time on Saturday nights in the fall, we all come together with a common vision and a common purpose - to cheer on the Tigers to victory.
I've always taken losing especially tough. When I was a kid, I would cry. When I was a teenager, I'd make excuses, and when I was in my early to mid-twenties, I would descend into a prolonged self-absorbed funk. Sometime after our national championship season of 2003 though, something clicked for me. We won it all and it was awesome, but nobody knocked on my door in Kentucky and handed me the national championship trophy. My day to day life remained significantly unchanged. At the apex of victory, I found myself still wanting something else.
So I created my "entertainment mantra". Yes, LSU football is important to me and yes it holds a special place in my life because of its ties to my family, but all that being said, at its core, it is simply entertainment. LSU football is NOT my identity. I watch LSU football because it's fun. It entertains me. And by entertainment's very definition, entertainment CANNOT hurt me. If it does so, it ceases to be entertainment and becomes something else. So this is how I deal with LSU football now:
When LSU plays well and we win, I eat it up. I talk about it with my friends, I read everything on the internet I can read about it, I re-watch the game in the middle of the week to see what we did right, and I listen to sportstalk radio ad nauseum to hear other people say how great we are. In short, I PRETEND like its the most important thing in the world and I bask in the sweet joy of victory.
When we lose, however, I quickly switch everything off. I don't read the paper, I don't watch TV, I don't read my internet sports sites, and I try to quickly avoid all conversations that deal with the loss. I acknowledge the loss, but I do so quickly and I move on. I tell myself that it's simply a game played by 18-22 year old young men who have no idea who I am. In short, I REMIND myself that in the grand scheme of things, it means nothing. It has little consequential significance to my everyday life. It is simply entertainment and entertainment cannot hurt me.
I realize that my approach makes me less of a "true fan". True fans take the agony of defeat along with the joy of victory. At this point in my life, I don't care about being a true fan anymore.
I honestly believe that the Lord has used my oftentimes misguided passion for LSU football for His purposes. He has taught me that I cannot find my identity in anything or anybody but HIM. I can try to do it, but ultimately it will cause me great pain and will yield me little benefit (even at the emotional zenith of the experience). Every LSU loss brings me back down to earth, realizing that my true identity is not as a LSU Tiger, but as a son of the most high, a warrior in the ranks of the Lion of the tribe of Judah. Every loss sends me running back to Abba, crawling in his arms and asking Him to give me eternal perspective on my life.
So yeah, we lost. But I enjoyed a cloudless afternoon on a wonderfully cold November day in Baton Rouge, Louisiana sitting together with my dad, my mom, and my sister for the first time in over 10 years. I yelled and screamed and laughed with my little sister like we were kids again. When I got home to Paw Paw Zeke's house after the game, Anna Grace yelled. "DADDY!!!" and jumped in my arms, little Zeke gave me a big smile when he heard my raspy voice, and my wonderful wife told me how much fun she had taking the two kids by herself to the Audubon Zoo while I enjoyed the game.
Losing isn't so bad...