Years ago, I found some surprising behavior from others when I became proficient as a squash player. It made me reflect on what you learn about character through sport.
For a number of years I played a lot of squash. One of my girlfriends took up the sport and introduced it me to, and I liked it immediately. I took a while to get the basics down – the ball doesn’t bounce very well in a game being played by beginners or low-skilled players. In order to get it to bounce well, it needs to be warmed up through being hit. In order to hit it, it needs to bounce. I stuck with it and developed into a solid B level player.
Fanatical interest
I was fanatical about playing regularly. I joined clubs and played in leagues. I entered tournaments around the city. At one point I even lived in a building with a squash court so that I could play almost any time without driving to the club. I watched A level players as often as I could so that I could see their technique and learn about strategy.
Squash is an intense workout. The short bursts of energy needed to cover the court in a hotly contested game gave me the level of cardio work out that I enjoyed. I could work up a real sweat quickly and sustain it through the game. The sport was a nice compliment to basketball.
Similar goals
I met a range of people when I started playing in leagues and tournaments. For the most part, the women were very nice. They had their reasons for being interested in squash, with the two prime ones being exercise and competition. That suited me well – that’s what interested me. That and moving up through the leagues and the levels.
When I qualified to play B level players (after winning 1 D and 2 C-level tournaments), I started to play women who were more focused on competition and winning. That was fine with me as I started to enjoy hard-fought games. I won more than I lost and felt that I was progressing well for the time that I was investing.
Surprising actions
I didn’t really learn anything new about myself, my work ethic or what motivated me from the experience, but I did see a side to opponents that surprised me and that involved cheating. At first, I thought the women just had faulty memories. They would invert the score when they were serving. For example, if I had served and said “8-5,” that would mean that I was leading 8 to 5. Upon change of serve, suddenly my opponent would be leading and I would be losing – 8 to 5 for me became 8 to 5 for her.
Anyone could make a mistake in keeping score in a squash game. Typically when a mistake was pointed out to an opponent, an apology would be immediately offered and the score corrected. That was not the case in a couple of memorable instances with a couple of opponents. They denied that they had inverted the score to their favor, and other than refusing to play on, there was nothing that I could do. They cheated, and I know that they knew that I knew. They won the games because of cheating – a meaningless victory for them, I thought.
Revealing character
I like what John Wooden has been credited with saying, namely “Sports do not build character. They reveal it.” They reveal the exemplary and the deplorable. Many athletes, competing at an Olympic, high school, college and recreational level, dig deep within themselves to reach new heights. They earn satisfaction from setting a goal and then striving to achieve it.
Sometimes cheaters are caught and sometimes they are not – the same as outside sports. It’s hard to imagine anyone having real satisfaction knowing they didn’t deserve to win. Imagine the burden of knowing that an Olympic gold medal was earned by cheating with drugs. There is small solace in the excuse that is often proffered, namely that everyone is doing it.
Sports may be just a series of contests, but the lessons are real, and more than the final score tells the story. Ultimately, it’s what you know about yourself. Like everything it’s not the destination or the outcome in this case. It’s about the journey that one takes getting there.
