Pushing Boundaries: Embrace Greatness and Reject Mediocrity in Sports
Most nations do not have high enough expectations for their teams in sports competitions. Their citizens regularly accept mediocrity, and often accept below mediocrity. Whether it is Peru or Egypt celebrating only qualifying for a World Cup for the first time in 36 or 28 years respectively as if they’d won the World Cup, or India celebrating their one gold medal at the Olympics, this type of Minnow Mentality is just shameful. It also makes no sense to be ok with mediocre results in competitive sports. Nations must adopt the USA’s Mentality, where anything less than being number 1 is unacceptable.
Of course, I understand that for most nations, being number 1 in sports is just not feasible. Nations like Argentina or Ireland will never be the most successful nations in sports overall. You can’t expect Iceland to compete to win the World Cup or for a top place in the Olympic medal table. But beyond the true micro states, people must expect their nation to perform well above themselves and challenge for the top.
This goes to the question of why we play sports. Obviously for many it is for exercise, to socialize, or to have fun. That is fine. But for people who play a sport professionally, and especially for those who represent their country, much more must be and is expected. In this case, the point isn’t for each team to win once in a while, the same as others. It has to be to be the best overall all time, to dominate if they can. If everyone ends up equal, what’s the point? Competitive sports shouldn’t have the same results as communism.
It is understandable for the Philippines to celebrate their first Olympic gold medal in their history. But Filipinos should ask themselves why the 2020 Olympics saw them win their 1st ever Olympic gold and not their 100th ever Olympic gold. How can you possibly be ok with your nation being number 83 all time in something? If you are not the best, what have you accomplished? I am not even from these countries and I feel insulted for them that they aren’t expecting the best for themselves. All nationalities should expect the best for their country.
I was quite surprised at the level of celebration in Canada when they qualified for their first World Cup since 1986. Yes it was the first World Cup appearance in 36 years, but it should have been viewed as only the starting point. My jaw dropped when, after losing all 3 of their World Cup group games, almost every Canadian fan commented how proud they were of the team for just qualifying. It reminded me of when I saw Canadians saying how proud they were of their athletes when they only won 2 gold medals in the 2012 Olympics. The USA won 47 gold medals in those Olympics. Knowing how less populated Australia performs miles better than Canada in most sports, I wondered where Canada’s self respect was.
Here in the United States, this type of mentality just isn’t even possible. Take the most recent World Cup and Summer Olympics for reference. When the US won the 2020 Olympic medal table on the last day, there was happiness. Happiness that the USA had an epic comeback. But most were questioning why the USA didn’t win the medal table in a landslide like they did in 2016. In one track event where the US team made a mistake, the American journalist asked quite pointed questions on why they messed up. There was no “we’re proud of you for just representing us.”
At the 2022 World Cup, the US outplayed all 3 of their group stage opponents. This included England, the inventors of the sport, and where soccer has been the top sport for over 130 years. In the USA, soccer is the 4th/5th sport, and wasn’t even a top 5 sport until recently. Yet even with that context, many commentators were bemoaning the USA’s lack of goals and clear level below the top contenders. While they included commentators like Stephen A Smith, who know nothing about soccer, they illustrated a larger point.
That point is that even in a sport that an American doesn’t know about he has an expectation of high level performance and winning. As Stephen A Smith said, “when you have USA [on your shirt], I expect wins attached to it.” Taylor Twellman even noted that while the USA is the dominant sports nation, we aren’t in soccer (as it is our 4th/5th sport) and we have to accept that being top 16 is actually good. Twellman noted that for Americans, celebrating just being in the top 16 is hard to understand. Many Americans who didn’t know what ‘offsides’ was were still annoyed that they tied instead of beat inventors of soccer, England.
America’s population, diversity and resources play a role in their world sporting dominance. But this type of mentality on expecting to be the best, often called Hegemon Mentality, is something that pushes the US to succeed even more than they otherwise would. This Hegemon Mentality in sports does partly come from the fact that the US has been the most powerful and influential nation in the world for decades. It is engrained in the US that the US is number 1 and must be number 1. Any area where it is not means there is work to do. This is why the US is the most successful sports nation of all time. It is why the US is known as the Hegemon of World Sports.
Obviously, it is difficult for other nations to match the US. I am not saying that they should tomorrow expect the success of the US. But they do need to ditch this idea that being middle of the pack in success is ok. The end goal of a competition is to see who is the best. Not to see who is third from the bottom. Not to see who is 14th instead of 15th place. If you are a medium nation, at least aim to be far more successful than any nation of comparable size. That can apply to any type of nation.
From there, continue to try to climb the latter of success. If a nation has that mentality and implements the necessary things to do that, they will climb the rankings. And this type of mentality only leads to better competition and more greatness across the board. So even if you don’t care for sporting domination, this mentality will lead to higher quality play. It’s time to ditch the Minnow Mentality of accepting mediocrity. Have some national self respect. Expect greatness. Be like the USA. Have a Hegemon Mentality.