Winners and Losers

I’ve always been competitive. Even as a child, I wanted to win at whatever I did. I remember my second year playing in the Mini Maid softball league. My team was facing off with our biggest rival in the championship game. In the days leading up to the game, there was much taunting and gibing on both sides as only immature, unfiltered 9-year-olds can.

We won that game. And instead of ending the competition with the polite “good game” handshake tradition, a few of us cheered and jeered our way down the line. There was no ice cream celebration for me that night.  I remember the lecture clearly.

Being a good winner is as important as being a good loser. You aren’t just being unkind and ugly to opponents in a game. They are neighbors and friends who live in your community and go to your school.

This is one of the first lessons we teach children—not just how to win and lose, but how to win and lose well. We tell them to be gracious even when they feel like gloating and to recognize the effort of others. Why? Because we want kids to understand that how they accept victory and defeat has little to do with the game and everything to do with their character.

That memory has come back to me in a technicolor epiphany.  If we are honest, we can probably all think of times in our lives when we’ve been both sore winners and sore losers.  I know I can. At a time when we’re more polarized than ever after perhaps the biggest, most consequential “game” of our lifetimes, players across the board — winners and losers — are responding with a wide range of emotions from jubilation to anger.

Posturing to pouting.
Defiance to deflation.

A strong community is built on mutual respect and shared experiences. When someone wins with grace, they lift others up in their acknowledgment that not everyone is celebrating. They recognize that their victory is, in some way, a reflection of collective effort—whether it’s a team sport, a workplace achievement, or a national election. The best winners leave others inspired and engaged to stay in the game.

We all enjoy winning. But a poor winner makes winning ugly in the way they gleefully mock and belittle their opponents. Winning isn’t just a celebratory moment for them; it’s validation that they are fundamentally better than everyone else. They aren’t interested in building community; they want to be recognized as superior as much as they want losers to be recognized as inferior. They might win the game, but they lose something far more valuable: the goodwill and respect of their community.

Sore winners and sore losers both contribute to a deeply divided society by fostering a culture of “us vs. them” rather than “we’re in this together.” Sore losers refuse to acknowledge fair competition, attributing their failures to external forces rather than personal growth, fueling bitterness and a refusal to engage constructively. Sore winners turn success into exclusion, using their victory to belittle others and assert dominance.

Together, they create a toxic cycle—one where people stop finding opportunities to learn and grow together. Instead creating a battlefield where the goal isn’t just to win, but to demean and discredit the other side.  It results in finger-pointing, name-calling, shaming, and blaming – creating an environment devoid of the psychological safety required to find common ground.

In the best of times.
In the worst of times.

When winning is more about celebrating the fear and despair of others than participating in a shared experience, we all lose.