Defeated Sport Quotes

In the dust of defeat as well as the laurels of victory there is a glory to be found if one has done his best.

Like books, sports give people a sense of having lived other lives, of taking part in other people’s victories. And defeats. When sports are at their best, the spirit of the fan merges with the spirit of the athlete.

Talking about one's feelings defeats the purpose of having those feelings. Once you try to put the human experience into words, it becomes little more than a spectator sport. Everything must have a cause, and a name. Every random thought must have a root in something else.

All other trades are contained in that of war. Is that why war endures? No. It endures because young men love it and old men love it in them. Those that fought, those that did not. That's your notion. The judge smiled. Men are born for games. Nothing else. Every child knows that play is nobler than work. He knows too that the worth or merit of a game is not inherent in the game itself but rather in the value of that which is put at hazard. Games of chance require a wager to have meaning at all. Games of sport involve the skill and strength of the opponents and the humiliation of defeat and the pride of victory are in themselves sufficient stake because they inhere in the worth of the principals and define them. But trial of chance or trial of worth all games aspire to the condition of war for here that which is wagered swallows up game, player, all.

We may encounter many defeats but we must not be defeated.

It’s amazing how two thin pieces of clothing can hold such deep memories. Laughter, pain, victory, defeat, friendship, fatigue, elation… they’re all there, but only to the person who’s worn the uniform

You can perhaps, in a number of circumstances, tell yourself that you can't have more than you have until you do better than you're doing, but by all means steer clear of its reverse, the creed of defeat, in saying that you can't do better than you're doing until you can have more than you have.

It is in experiencing and accepting the pain of defeat, that we may truly acknowledge the joy of victory.

Just so you know, Araragi-kun, I hate romantic comedies where it is obvious the two will get together at the end but lukewarm developments keep them at an in-between more-than-friends-less-than-lovers state chapter after chapter just to keep the story going.” “...I see.” “Incidentally, I also hate sports manga where each match takes an entire year and yet you know they are going to win in the end. I also hate battle manga where it is clear they will defeat the final boss and bring peace to the world, but the battles with weaker enemies go on forever.” “I think you just covered every shounen manga and shoujo manga in existence.” - Senjougahara Hitagi & Araragi Koyomi

Defeated misery is what all sport is about, eventually, if you follow the story for long enough; all sportsmen know this.

Champions realise that defeat - and learning from it even more than from winning - is part of the path to mastery.

Life is like sports. It's everyday purposely engaging in imperfect situations to best manage them toward victory. Overcome, adapt, don't look back. Defeat is giving up, Play your game game! Choose not to be defeated!

On athleticism, God knows no favor. It seems rather he is in the business of teaching winners how to lose and losers how to win.

Losing teaches you how to win; winning teaches you how not to lose.

There is a Western phenomenon called the male midlife crisis. Very often it is heralded by divorce. What history might have done to you, you bring about on purpose: separation from woman and child. Don’t tell me that such men aren’t tasting the ancient flavors of death and defeat. In America, with divorce achieved, the midlifer can expect to be more recreational, more discretionary. He can almost design the sort of crisis he is going to have: motorbike, teenage girlfriend, vegetarianism, jogging, sports car, mature boyfriend, cocaine, crash diet, powerboat, new baby, religion, hair transplant. Over here, now, there’s no angling around for your male midlife crisis. It is brought to you and it is always the same thing. It is death.

Life is full of all sorts of setbacks and twists and turns and disappointments. The character of this team will be how well you will come back from this letdown, this defeat. You could still be a great team and you can still accomplish great things as football players but it's going to take a real resolve to do it." -Coach Ladouceur

In Mongolian culture, Khutulun is remembered by the sport in which she so excelled. These days when Mongolian men wrestle, they wear a sort of long-sleeved vest that is open in the front to prove tp their opponents they don't have breasts. It's a tribute to the woman wrestler who was never defeated.

Like books, sports give people a sense of having lived other lives, of taking part in other people's victories. And defeats. When sports are at their best, the spirit of the fan merges with the spirit of the athlete, and in that convergence, in that transference, is the oneness that the mystics talk about.

Men are born for games. Nothing else. Every child knows that play is nobler than work. He knows too that the worth or merit of a game is not inherent in the game itself but rather in the value of that which is put at hazard. Games of chance require a wager to have meaning at all. Games of sport involve the skill and strength of the opponents and the humiliation of defeat and the pride of victory are in themselves sufficient stake because they inhere in the worth of the principals and define them. But the trial of chance or trial of worth all games aspire to the condition of war for here that which is wagered swallows up game, player, all.

Next to the defeated politician, the writer is the most vocal and inventive griper on earth. He sees hardship and unfairness wherever he looks. His agent doesn’t love him (enough). The blank sheet of paper is an enemy. The publisher is a cheapskate. The critic is a philistine. The public doesn’t understand him. His wife doesn’t understand him. The bartender doesn’t understand him. These are only some of the common complaints of working writers, but I have yet to hear any of them bring up the most fundamental gripe of all: the lifelong, horrifying expense involved in getting out the words. This may come as a surprise to many of you who assume that a writer’s equipment is limited to paper and pencils and a bottle of whiskey, and maybe one tweed sports coat for interviews. It goes far beyond that. The problem from which all other problems spring is that writing takes up the time that could otherwise be spent earning a living. The most humble toiler on Wall Street makes more in a month than ninety percent of writers make in a year. A beggar on the street, seeing a writer shuffling toward him, will dig deep into his rags to see if he can spare a dime. . . .

Sadistic monsters,' Gwyn hissed as the three friends limped toward the water station, defeat heavy on their shoulders. 'We try again tomorrow,' Emerie swore, sporting a black eye thanks tot the swinging log that had knocked her on her ass before Nesta could grab her. 'We keep trying until we wipe that smug look off their stupid perfect faces. Indeed, Azriel and Cassian had just leaned against the wall, arms crossed, and smiled at them the entire time. Gwyn threw Azriel a withering stare as she strode past him. 'See you tomorrow, Shadowsinger,' she tossed over a shoulder. Az stared after her, brows high with amusement. When he turned back, Nesta grinned. 'You have no idea what you just started,' she said. Az angled his head, hazel eyes narrowing as Gwyn reached the archway. 'Remember how Gwyn was with the ribbon?' Nesta winked and clapped the shadowsinger on the shoulder. 'You're the new ribbon, Az.

She detested rows and scenes, but enjoyed quietly pitting her cool will against opposition. It amused her; and when she was defeated, she withdrew in good order and lost interest in the campaign. She had little or no sporting spirit. Bloody battles to the death bored her, nor did she like other people to win.

Many think that the mark of a great champion is the nature and margin of their victories and the peaks they scale and reach. That’s only part of it. The mark of the greatest of champions is how they react and respond to defeat. That is when they become enshrined in our hearts and minds – as they rise again and into the immortal pages of history.

while you play bowling with one ball you will be late because untill come in that ball it's need time so you need more than one ball in order to defeat the whole army .

Champions choose faith. Champions choose to be fearless. Why? Because victory favors the fearless. Everything is a choice. I choose to be fearless.

The man who refuses to change will never reach his full potential.

If you want to achieve greatness, you have to be willing to make changes, no matter how uncomfortable those changes might be in the short-term.

Don’t let the fear of change keep you from taking the risks necessary to achieve greatness.

Fear creates indecisiveness and indecisiveness makes you weak.

You show me a weak leader and I’ll show you someone who’s afraid to make decisions. Great achievers will sometimes make poor decisions, but they’ll never make weak decisions.

Don’t procrastinate and avoid difficult challenges. Attack and adapt.” “But what if I lose

It’s what you do after the decision is made that matters more than the decision itself.

If you choose to believe that an obstacle is actually an opportunity for something better, an amazing thing happens.

The difference between champions and everyone else isn’t that champions always make the right decision, the difference is what they do after the decision is made. Wrong or right, they move forward and adapt along the way.

What’s more important than the decision you make is your attitude and your effort after it’s made. That’s what determines your results. The person with the most aggressive attitude and the most relentless effort usually wins.

That was something a lot of people didn’t get about true sporting rivalries. You don’t actually hate the so-called enemy; on the contrary, you need them. Victory is only victory and defeat is only defeat when there is something to hold it against.

You have to push yourself. You have to change. It’s a hard thing to do. Nobody likes change. People get comfortable where they are and they don’t want to risk losing what they’ve got. But to become the best you’re capable of becoming, you have to be willing to do uncomfortable things. You have to be willing to change.

I’d seen more than a few op-eds in sports magazines about how Carrie Soto acts more like a machine than a woman and The Battle Axe never seems to enjoy her wins. Other players on the tour would mention in interviews that I wasn’t very friendly. As if I was supposed to befriend the very same women I was defeating week after week.

This I decided is what sports are, what they can do. Like books, sports give people a sense of having lived other lives, of taking part in other people's victories. And defeats. When sports are at their best, the spirit of the fan merges with the spirit of the athlete, and in that convergence, in that transference, is the oneness that the mystics talk about.

Specifically, there are seven common fears you must learn to defeat if you want to live a happy and successful life: 1) The fear of what other people think. 2) The fear of change. 3) The fear of making the wrong decision. 4) The fear of missing out on something better. 5) The fear of not being good enough. 6) The fear of failure being permanent. 7) The fear of being “due” for a setback.

Seneca writes that unbruised prosperity is weak and easy to defeat in the ring, but “a man who has been at constant feud with misfortunes acquires a skin calloused by suffering.” This man, he says, fights all the way to the ground and never gives up. That’s what Epictetus means too. What kind of boxer are you if you leave because you get hit? That’s the nature of the sport! Is that going to stop you from continuing?

The rise of the western crews may have shocked eastern fans, but it delighted newspaper editors across the country in the 1930s. The story fit in with a larger sports narrative that had fueled newspaper and newsreel sales since the rivalry between two boxers—a poor, part-Cherokee Coloradoan named Jack Dempsey and an easterner and ex-Marine named Gene Tunney—had riveted the nation’s attention in the 1920s. The East versus West rivalry carried over to football with the annual East-West Shrine Game and added interest every January to the Rose Bowl—then the nearest thing to a national collegiate football championship. And it was about to have additional life breathed into it when an oddly put together but spirited, rough-and-tumble racehorse named Seabiscuit would appear on the western horizon to challenge and defeat the racing establishment’s darling, the king of the eastern tracks, War Admiral.

The Harpies’ defeat of the Heidelberg Harriers in 1953 is widely agreed to have been one of the finest Quidditch games ever seen. Fought over a seven-day period, the game was brought to an end by a spectacular Snitch capture by the Harpy Seeker Glynnis Griffiths. The Harriers’ Captain Rudolf Brand famously dismounted from his broom at the end of the match and proposed marriage to his opposite number, Gwendolyn Morgan, who concussed him with her Cleansweep Five.

perhaps it was similar to how, when playing sports, you could never really give up or resign yourself to losing right till the very end. Even if you knew you were going to lose, even if you had long given up trying, the fact of defeat always dawned on you newly and almost incredibly when the final whistle was blown or wicket taken, the warm shiver of recognition that you’d failed sank in only after the match was lost, once everything was over, sometimes only several hours later,

The judge smiled. Men are born for games. Nothing else. Every child knows that play is nobler than work. He knows too that the worth or merit of a game is not inherent in the game itself but rather in the value of that which is put at hazard. Games of chance require a wager to have meaning at all. Games of sport involve the skill and strength of the opponents and the humiliation of defeat and the pride of victory are in themselves sufficient stake because they inhere in the worth of the principals and define them. But trial of chance or trial of worth all games aspire to the condition of war for here that which is wagered swallows up game, player, all. Suppose two men at cards with nothing to wager save their lives. Who has not heard such a tale? A turn of the card. The whole universe for such a player has labored clanking to this moment which will tell if he is to die at that man’s hand or that man at his. What more certain validation of a man’s worth could there be? This enhancement of the game to its ultimate state admits no argument concerning the notion of fate. The selection of one man over another is a preference absolute and irrevocable and it is a dull man indeed who could reckon so profound a decision without agency or significance either one. In such games as have for their stake the annihilation of the defeated the decisions are quite clear. This man holding this particular arrangement of cards in his hand is thereby removed from existence.

It's true that in her life she had seen many things through to their ultimate consequences, but only unimportant things. She was intransigent about the easy things, as if trying to prove to herself how strong and indifferent she was, when in fact she was just a fragile woman who had never been an outstanding student, never excelled at school sports, and had never succeeded in keeping the peace at home. She had overcome her minor defects only to be defeated by matters of fundamental importance.

Men are born for games. Nothing else. Every child knows that play is nobler than work. He knows too that the worth or merit of a game is not inherit in the game itself but rather in the value of that which is put at hazard. Games of chance require a wager to have meaning at all. Games of sport involve the skill and strength of the opponents and the humiliation of defeat and the pride of victory are in themselves sufficient stake because they inhere in the worth of the principals that define them. But trial of chance or trial of worth all games aspire to the condition of war for here that which is wagered swallows up game, player, all.

You’ve probably had a similar experience with someone you know. I’ve already recounted the stories of three of my closest friends—one in high school, one in college, and one in seminary—who seemed so dedicated to serving the Lord, and yet all of them eventually turned their backs on Him. One became a dope-smoking rock-concert promoter, and another became a Buddhist. These were not casual acquaintances, but friends at a very close level. I was sure they shared my passion for the true gospel as much as they shared my love for sports. These three young men proved to me that you can profess Christ and not know Him. You can think you’re a Christian and later see clearly that you’re not; you can certainly deceive other people. Seeing these seemingly intelligent, dedicated, strong Christians abandon their beliefs forced me to think about who is really a Christian and what being a Christian really means. Their actions portrayed them as fellow soldiers of Christ, but in the end their hearts exposed them as traitors. Spiritual defectors are an integral part of the story of Christianity, both past and present. They’re in your life and mine, just as they were in Jesus’ life. They shouldn’t surprise you, defeat you, disappoint you, or cause you to despair. Jesus’ insights on spiritual defectors in John 6, and the reaction to His teaching about the issue, give us one of the most compelling and enlightening stories of His ministry. It’s worth considering closely.

I knew the kind of culture we needed to create and I defined it for the team. The seven responsibilities everyone had were to: Have fun, work hard, and enjoy the journey. Show respect for every person you have contact with in the organization. Put the team first. Successful teams have teammates that are unselfish and willing to put their individual goals behind the team's goals. Do your job. It is defined, but you must always be prepared for it to change (especially if you're a player). Appropriately handle victory and defeat, adulation and humiliation. Do not get too high in victory or too low in defeat. Be the same person every day. Understand that all organizational decisions aim to make the team better, stronger, and more efficient. Have a positive attitude. Use positive language (both verbal and body language).

We sit here and we talk about sports. We talk about our home improvement projects. We gossip about family members we don’t care about. We self-victimize and complain about petty problems we've created ourselves. We work like dogs to keep up with the Joneses but have no time to enjoy the things we work for. We work purposeless jobs that keep us mildly happy, never really enjoying what we do, but we also never get the balls to leave the job. We drink on the weekends to numb the pain but it never really cures it. We criticize anyone who tries to break away from the rat race, because the idea that there is a way out scares us more than dying in the state we’re in. We only give to causes that affect us personally, only follow religions that suit us, only listen to people who agree with us, and worst of all,” he paused, and in a sad, defeated finale to his rant, he said, “We lie to ourselves.

The Archons use 'mind control' techniques. This is known as psychological warfare, but Archontic manipulation far surpasses anything the United States, Russia, Vatican City, Israel, or the United Kingdom has, of yet, invented. The Archons are the ultimate brainwashers. The Archons keep people distracted with pornography and drugs, with sports and alcohol, with material possessions, exotic vacations, artificial reality, addiction to various pleasures, along with dreams of the artificial technological paradise of: radical life-extension, transhumanism, nootropics and Brain Computer Interfaces. The Archons do this so that humanity does not have the time or opportunity to observe what is really happening in the world. Humanity is under siege. The Archons want you to be as uneducated and uninformed as possible. They destroy your passion for learning, and infiltrate and sabotage the educational system. Ultimately, they want to destroy all that makes you human, your hopes, your dreams, your joys, especially they want to destroy your spirituality.

During the 2016 US presidential campaign, the hatred shown toward Hillary Clinton far outstripped even the most virulent criticisms that could legitimately be pinned on her. She was linked with “evil” and widely compared to a witch, which is to say that she was attacked as a woman, not as a political leader. After her defeat, some of those critics dug out the song “Ding Dong, the Witch is Dead,” sung in The Wizard of Oz to celebrate the Witch of the East’s death—a jingle already revived in the UK at the time of Margaret Thatcher’s death in 2013. This reference was brandished not only by Donald Trump’s electors, but also by supporters of Bernie Sanders, Clinton’s main rival in the primaries. On Sanders’ official site, a fundraising initiative was announced under the punning title “Bern the Witch”—an announcement that the Vermont senator’s campaign team took down as soon as it was brought to his attention. Continuing this series of limp quips, the conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh quipped, “She’s a witch with a capital B”—he can’t have known that, at the Salem witch trials in the seventeenth century, a key figure had already exploited this consonance by calling his servant, Sarah Churchill, who was one of his accusers, “bitch witch.” In reaction, female Democrat voters started sporting badges calling themselves “Witches for Hillary” or “Hags for Hillary.”48

Expecting defeat more than halves the potency of our effort, and more than quadruples that of our opponent’s effort.

She said she had been teaching them the art of reframing: thinking their way toward victory instead of toward defeat. She had been teaching them about the effect that anxiety had on their performance. Diaphragmatic breathing and positive self-talk were two tools the sports psychologist had given the runners to control their anxiety. “If they are saying to themselves, ‘I won’t get a good time,’ I try to teach them to say, ‘Oh, those are just thoughts, it doesn’t mean it will happen,’ ” she explained. “Or if it’s windy, like today, and they are worried about that, they should remind themselves that the wind will help on one side of the track, even as it will hurt on the other side, so the net effect might be inconsequential.” I could see how those tools might

Even after Jason was met by so many defeats, he never said no to any situation. Jason Gesser moved on and on with his determination and willpower. Sticking around the Rose Bowl was something he couldn’t do for a while, but then he rose from all the downtrodden history and made a match for himself. He killed the whole game with his zeal and enthusiasm. Since then, he is known as the golden boy who has played through the cracked and the dislocated ribs with a severely sprained ankle during his Washington State Career. This was in the final and the biggest game. Gesser has been sacked around six times by the blitzing Oklahoma defense and has two passes in the game. Jason Gesser has played and won various games. He once completed 17 completions in 34 attempts for around 23 yards.

am blessed, I am strong, I am protected by God. God is taking care of me. With God by my side, I can accomplish anything.

Thank you for this moment, thank you for being here with me. Whatever happens in the future, I trust you to guide me on the path I’m supposed to be on. I refuse to worry. I trust you with it all. Fill me with your love. Fill me with your power. Make me the best that I can be. Whatever happens happens. I trust you with the results. I trust you with everything.

Often times, the best way to defeat fear is to experience the very thing you fear.

Seek safety by keeping everything the same.” I will say, “I seek victory by changing and growing.

The fears you’ve dealt with over the years have all been different, but the solution to defeating each of them has always been the same: What you focus on is what you tend to create. If you want to change your attitude or your circumstances, simply change what you’re focusing on. Shift your focus from fear of a negative outcome to faith in a positive one.

Your focus is your aim. Whatever you aim for, you’re more likely to hit.

It’s in those moments when you have to teach yourself not to focus on the pain, but to instead focus on the desired result or the positive consequences of pain. Focus on moving forward despite the pain and the pain lessens. Focus on fighting through the pain and the pain dissipates. Focus on the strength that comes from pain and the pain gives way to feelings of strength.

The beliefs we hold onto drive everything. What you believe will determine what you focus on, which will determine what you experience.

Whatever you go looking for, you will find. Fear wants you to go looking for the negatives. It’s up to you to go looking for the positives.

Don’t hold onto any beliefs that empower fear. Choose only beliefs that empower you.

To achieve greatness, you have to leave your comfort zone,

At any given time, you’re either moving forward or falling backwards. Trying to keep things the same and trying to avoid change leads to falling backwards.

You have to identify exactly what it is you fear before you can defeat it.

Critics will never stop criticizing you because they can’t stand the idea of someone they know chasing their dream and succeeding.

Fear may not be the sole cause of every negative situation, but it always makes the situation worse, and it will always make the situation last longer.

And what if I’m afraid of letting down the people who are depending on me?” I asked. “I fear letting down my wife. She’s depending on me. My future kids are depending on me. What if I fail and I’ve wasted my time and money chasing a fruitless dream? I’m not only failing myself, I’m failing my family.” Andre came to a stop and I did the same. I was taking deep breaths. “The problem isn’t caring about the people close to you—the problem is letting fear be your motivator,” Andre said. “Remember, fear is an emotion driven by your expectations. Like every other fear, fearing that you’re going to let someone down makes you timid, tight, and indecisive.

Over the next several weeks, every time I replayed a snarky comment or envisioned people laughing at me, I immediately asked myself, Am I giving my best? Am I becoming the best that I can be? Am I chasing my dream? If I am, then who cares what anyone else thinks?

Both faith and fear are nothing more than the beliefs you have about your future. Fear makes you afraid of what the future might bring. Faith makes you excited about what the future might bring.

When you choose faith over fear, you create a positive destiny for yourself. This is why I like to say, Victory favors the fearless.

dérouillée /deʀuje/ nf 1. (volée de coups) hiding (familier), beating • recevoir or prendre une ~ | to get a hiding 2. (défaite sportive) thrashing (familier), defeat dérouiller /deʀuje/ I. vtr (dégourdir) [sport] to loosen up [jambes]; to limber [sb] up [personne]; [lecture] to stimulate [esprit] II. vi (recevoir des coups) to get a hiding (familier), to get a beating; (souffrir) to go through hell (familier), to suffer III. vpr (se dégourdir) to limber up • se ~ les jambes | to loosen up one's legs

This is why you have to ignore the voice of fear and listen to the voice of faith. Instead of being motivated by what might happen if you let people down, you should be motivated by what might happen if you lift people up.

If you’re envisioning what you can do to lift people up, faith is the motivator. Fear makes you focus on what you don’t want to have happen. Faith makes you focus on what you do want to have happen.

The fear of what other people think will prevent you from becoming the person God made you to be,

When Fear says, ‘The key to success is knowing when to quit and move on.’ You have to say, ‘The key to success is refusing to quit and continuing to move forward.’ Tell yourself again and again, ‘I refuse to quit.

The hard times will make you better as long as you refuse to let them make you bitter. Whether

Every path will have its own rough patches along the way—so you might as well make sure you’re on a path you’re truly passionate about.

When you take out the fear, you’re able to rely on instincts and training.

How will I know when that day arrives?” I asked. “When what you’re doing is no longer something you’re passionate about. And I don’t mean for a couple days or weeks when you’re discouraged after a setback or exhausted from the work you’ve put in. I mean when you feel in your heart that the fire isn’t what it used to be. When the fire goes out, it’s time for something new.

Nobody’s going to hand you your dreams. If you want it, you have to go out and get it.

If the Cubs win the World Series, the playing of the sport must be discontinued. The leagues disbanded, the players sent home, the stadiums destroyed. Professional baseball really began with the team that became the Cubs. Early in the twentieth century, that team won and won and won and then, for whatever reason, stopped winning. They set of on a 108-year trek through the wilderness, plumbed the depths of defeat, then somehow found their way back. 2016 was 1908 all over again. The historic arc of the game could finally be recognized. It's a story that begins and ends in Chicago. If they won Game 7, that story would reach its obvious conclusion. Disband and go home. Anything beyond this point is postscript.

Sadistic monsters,' Gwyn hissed as the three friends limped toward the water station, defeat heavy on their shoulders. 'We try again tomorrow,' Emerie swore, sporting a black eye thanks to the swinging log that had knocked her on her ass before Nesta could grab her. 'We keep trying until we wipe that smug look off their stupid perfect faces. Indeed, Azriel and Cassian had just leaned against the wall, arms crossed, and smiled at them the entire time. Gwyn threw Azriel a withering stare as she strode past him. 'See you tomorrow, Shadowsinger,' she tossed over a shoulder. Az stared after her, brows high with amusement. When he turned back, Nesta grinned. 'You have no idea what you just started,' she said. Az angled his head, hazel eyes narrowing as Gwyn reached the archway. 'Remember how Gwyn was with the ribbon?' Nesta winked and clapped the shadowsinger on the shoulder. 'You're the new ribbon, Az.

You tend to forget the good things when caught in an emotional raincloud of defeat anyway. That's why all athletes need a regular reality check, giving them a sense of balance between sports and life. They need to be told again that life is for living and sports are for playing. One you do the whole time you're here on the planet and the other you only do for a few short years. There's a big difference between the two, though the boundary lines are not marked with the same white paint found on the field. Perspective in sports is tantamount to longevity and success. Effectively dealing with tough losses demands that an athlete re-align himself often.

The Archons keep people distracted with pornography and drugs, with sports and alcohol, with material possessions, exotic vacations, artificial reality, addiction to various pleasures, along with dreams of the artificial technological paradise of: radical life-extension, transhumanism, nootropics and Brain Computer Interfaces.

With the time and money Bloomberg groups spend demonizing peaceful, law-abiding mom-and-dad gun owners, they could have promoted real gun safety. Bloomberg’s $50 million to shout down dissent on Second Amendment issues could have gone toward putting a safe in every American home or teaching children about proper behavior with and around firearms. He could have donated to Project Child Safe, a wonderful program created by the National Shooting Sports Foundation, which gives away free gun locks in gun safety kits through partners in every state. Over thirty-six million safety kits have been distributed through partnerships with law enforcement agencies in all fifty states. Unfortunately,

I have confessed sin over cigars, asked for prayer over cigars, celebrated personal and professional victories over cigars, and mourned personal and professional defeats over cigars. I’ve laughed with those who have laughed, over cigars, and wept with those who have wept. That’s not to elevate the cigar to some kind of exalted religious or cultural level. Here’s what a cigar is, in plain-speak: An excuse to sit down and talk with another guy for an hour. Think about it . . . when does this ever happen outside a cigar lounge? When guys are “hunting together” they’re sitting in a tree stand being quiet. When guys are “watching a ballgame together” they’re sitting in a living room or a sports bar staring slack-jawed at a television. When guys are “shopping for antiques together”[3] they’re walking through a junky antique store making fun of all the ridiculous stuff inside and not really talking about the stuff of life. The cigar lounge removes the awkward stiltedness of the Church Lobby (“How are YOU doing Bob?”), and it’s not as formal and intimidating as a counselor’s office, yet it still works as a place to talk.

If you constantly complain about what kind of year your team is having, maybe sports has become your god. What we complain about reveals what really matters to us. Whining shows what has power over us. Whining, in many ways, is the opposite of worshiping the Lord. Worship is when we glorify God for who he is and acknowledge what he has done for us, but whining is ignoring who God is and forgetting what he has done for us.

One of them, the philosopher Philostratus, summed up the idea by saying that the great athletes of the past “made war training for sport, and sport training for war.” Turning Spartan logic on its head, Plutarch even claimed that the Thebans at the great Battle of Leuctra in 371 BC defeated the Spartans because they had done more training at the palaestra; he also wrote that sport, wrestling specifically included, was an imitation and exercise of war.

Seattle sports had once risen briefly to international prominence, in 1917, when the city’s professional hockey team, the Metropolitans, became the first American team to win the Stanley Cup, defeating the Montreal Canadiens. But the Metropolitans ordinarily played only in the Pacific Coast Hockey Association, and when the owner of their arena did not renew their lease in 1924, the team folded. Given

This, I decided, this is what sports are, what they can do. Like books, sports give people a sense of having lived other lives, of taking part in other people’s victories. And defeats. When sports are at their best, the spirit of the fan merges with the spirit of the athlete, and in that convergence, in that transference, is the oneness that the mystics talk about. Walking

Jones’s faithful old friend and chronicler O. B. Keeler, now fifty-five and still covering the sport for the Atlanta Journal, was on hand to witness his victory and interviewed Byron in the locker room afterward. The unfailingly literate Keeler mentioned that Byron’s back nine charge had put him in mind of Lord Byron’s poem about Napoleon’s defeat at the Battle of Waterloo. His headline the next day read: “LORD BYRON WINS MASTERS.

. It is often said that in elite sport the margins of victory and defeat are measured in milliseconds: the reality is that they are measured in variables that are far more elusive.

The shirtsleeved bald bartender was tall and fat, looking like a retired cop who'd gone to seed the day his papers had come through. At the bar, muttering together about sports and politics—other people's victories and defeats—were nine or ten shabbily dressed guys who were older than their teeth.

In sports, deliberate play23 is typically organized around a subcomponent of a performance or match. In tennis, for example, you might hone your serving skills by challenging yourself to see how many consecutive serves you can make. Success might be defeating an opponent, outdoing yourself, or beating the clock. You’re not counting your hours; you’re tracking your improvement. Your score is not a symbol of victory; it’s a gauge of progress.

The art of true sportsmanship is not only shaped by winning, but by being able to embrace defeat, respect and participating with integrity.

Like books, sports give people a sense of having lived other lives, of taking part in other people’s victories. And defeats. When sports are at their best, the spirit of the fan merges with the spirit of the athlete, and in that convergence, in that transference, is the oneness that the mystics talk about.