The Golden State Warriors won the 2022 NBA championship last night, defeating the Boston Celtics in six games. This is the fact. And now comes the noise…
Pundits will crush Boston’s All-Star
and Olympic Gold Medalist Jayson Tatum because he only scored 13 points on 6 of
18 field goal attempts and he had 5 turnovers. Of course, Tatum is to blame….
Think for just a minute of the
silliness of that statement. Jayson Tatum is to blame for the Celtics losing.
He led the team in scoring this season, averaging 27 points and chipping in 8
rebounds and 4 assists per game. He was their best player and without him it’s
hard to imagine the Celtics would have even made the playoffs.
Go back to last week and one of Golden
State’s best players, Klay Thompson was only 4 of 15 in his three-point attempts
in the first two games. ESPN analysts boldly predicted that the Warriors would
lose if Thompson continued to play this badly.
He didn’t and the blame was redirected
to the next player who was in line with the type of statistics that those who
ARE NOT playing in the NBA think they should have.
Yes, this is the definition of preposterous.
But it isn’t just a professional sports
infection.
The word stems from the 1100’s Latin
word “blasphemere” which was to “speak lightly or amiss of god or sacred
things,” the word whittled down to its current adaptation: blame.
If you have been asleep, comatose, or
living in a bunker for the last 50 years, maybe you haven’t noticed. But blame
is the currency of American politics, the driving force behind sports talk
shows, the rationale for unforeseen and unfortunate outcomes and overall, a
self-serving AND face-saving strategy for all.
Blaming others has been around since
Eve coaxed Adam to take a bite of an apple, but it is becoming more a coursing lifeblood
of athletes, fans and coaches of youth sports as well.
The last tournament you attended; can
you count how many times YOU blamed someone else? The official? The coach? The
site director? USAV rules? The club? Another player or parent on the team?
Another team or coach? Just this ONE instance, this literal teardrop in an
ocean of a youth sports career and we have used blame like it’s oxygen.
Have you ever wondered why? Why are we
so quick to blame? The person driving slow in front of us made us late! It
wasn’t the fact that I was late leaving the house and now trying to speed up
for the time I wasted earlier.
The official that just called my
daughter for a double isn’t calling anything on the other team and hates our
team, it’s not likely that my daughter is still learning to set and is still
making mistakes in the learning process.
My team lost their rivalry game because the coach is an idiot and doesn’t know how to coach, it’s not the fact that for today, for this moment, the other team was better.
Why blame others?
Noted author Simon Sinek skims the
argument and comes up with this: “Accountability
is hard. Blame is easy. One builds trust, the other destroys it.”
Renowned
author Brene’ Brown scuttles blame into two quick points. “Blame is simply the
discharging of discomfort and pain.” And, “Blame is faster than
accountability.”
The
Harvard Business Review talks about blame as “the germ that spreads and is the
goal of protecting one’s self-image.”
And in
a wonderful article from a few years back, Andrea Blundell in the Harley
Therapy counselling blog gives 5 valid reasons for blame:
- 1. Blaming others is easy.
- 2. Blame means you don’t have to be vulnerable.
- 3. Blaming others feeds your need for control.
- 4. Blame unloads backed up feelings.
- 5. Blame protects your ego.
Unpacking
these ideas gives us a sense of why we are so quick to blame others. But there
is a moral casualty from our behavior that festers under the surface.
Our
children, our athletes become victims.
Blame
stokes the furnace of the “poor me” attitude. The athlete that is misunderstood
by their coach, hated by the officials, chided by the other parents, not the
coaches favorite. “Why should I work hard? No one on the team gives me the ball
anyway!”
This
mentality is a hop, skip and a jump from walking away from sports, perhaps
forever.
Are
their coaches with favorites? Of course. Is an athlete hated by an official?
Perhaps but highly unlikely. Other parents treat this athlete badly? Maybe, but
a better explanation is that kids can hear what they want to hear.
The
bottom line is that every mistake on your life can be blamed on something or
someone other than you. That is the reality of blame.
But
when you see coaches take the blame for a loss, or players stepping into the mouth
of the media lion, there is something refreshing and courageous about those
moments. Probably because they are so rare.
As always, the mirror is our best teacher. Next time you want to blame someone, stop. Remember that young athletes are not professionals and are still learning. Remember that officials are not perfect and miss things. Remember that professional athletics are and will always be random. Remember that a jump shot in basketball is not automatic and that a swing on a volleyball court isn’t always a point.
But most of all, remember what Theodore Roosevelt said in his famous quote. Appreciate the effort, the hard work, the commitment. And those critics that spend their time and make a living criticizing others don’t deserve our attention:
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
