Editorial February 7, 1994 Issue

A prize worth winning

Mary Metzner Trammell

It was another one of Anne's "rips"—those splashless, straight-as-a-pencil springboard dives that slice into the water like a knife. But, perfect as the dive was, Anne's dad just shook his head and said, "She'll never win in a meet. She doesn't have enough killer in her." That's a line of reasoning we've all heard: that some athletes just aren't mean enough to win.

But do you really have to psych out your competitors and develop a dog-eat-dog attitude toward them to succeed in athletics—or dating or academics or business or international relations, for that matter? And is it really true, as the famous American baseball manager Leo Durocher once said, that "nice guys finish last"?

Apparently, the members of a ninth-grade boys' soccer team in the Boston area think the answer to these questions is "No." The officials called it a 5–4 win for them in a recent game. But the boys put their heads together and decided to tell the referees the truth: the winning goal wasn't a goal after all, since the ball had hit the crossbar and bounced out. So the game went on record as a 4–4 tie instead. And everybody felt good about it, including a local newspaper columnist who praised the boys for their sportsmanship.

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