Losers in sport

BUSINESS DAY, 1 OCTOBER 1999

THIS MAY SEEM UNLIKELY, but something Craig Jamieson said recently made me pause to think. Interviewed on television, the former Natal rugby captain reminisced about the province’s famous first-ever Currie Cup final victory in 1990.

“It was a tight game,” he recalled fondly, “but then Theo van Rensburg missed a tackle and gave us the title.” I winced in sympathy with Theo, who was no doubt at that moment frozen in horror, braai tongs in hand, wors half-turned, his mates all pretending to find something fascinating to read in the newspaper.

But then an image floated into my head: it is the final minute of a home test against France, South Africa one point behind. Theo steps up to take a kick almost directly in front of the poles. Like a great soggy baguette, the ball wobbles wide. Dizzy from a memory I had successfully repressed for the better part of a decade, I felt my sympathy for Theo van Rensburg evaporate. “Serves the loser bastard right,” I snarled.

One of the fundamental truths of sport is that, regardless of talent or training, some sportsmen are winners, some are losers, and there is nothing anyone can do about it. Indeed, the athletes we take most enthusiastically to our hearts are those who parlay unexceptional gifts into the stuff of greatness. The World Cup squad of 1995 is an obvious case: a modest team with all the flair of a pair of stovepipe jeans, but when it came down to it, Stransky’s drop went through, and Mehrtens’ went wide.

Consider Gerrie Coetzee, one of the most gifted heavyweights of the post-Larry Holmes era, who contrived to lose first to a drug addict and then to Frank Bruno, himself a confirmed loser and an Englishman to boot. Baby Jake Matlala, by contrast – a man knee-high to Martin Locke, with a punch like a slap from Glenn Hicks – is a multiple world champion. Baby Jake is a winner, Gerrie was a loser.

The most obvious breed of loser is the Choker. Wayne Ferreira and Elana Meyer are champions in this breed, and they say their prayers to St Zola Budd of the Order of Perpetual Fourth Place. They are classic chokers – extravagantly talented, but blessed with the mental toughness of a punnet of Denny’s button mushrooms. To them BMT is a sandwich with bacon, mayonnaise and tomato. Their careers are as predictable as a Hugh Bladen commentary: when the heat is on, when they are in a position to make that single step to greatness, they wilt like Steve Hofmeyr being handed a condom.

South African chokers – from Kevin Curren to Okkert Brits – is a favourite topic with my friend Phillip, especially after the fourth beer. His explanation – simple, yet sound – is that so many South Africans choke on the big stage because they had maids making their beds when they were kids. They are soft, pampered, cut off from the consequences of their actions: if they spill Nesquik on the sheets, by the next time they get into bed everything will be smooth and clean and snuggly. There is always an excuse, someone to blame, a reason for not doing the dirty work themselves. You would think that someone with Wayne’s complexion or Elana’s voice would know something about overcoming hardships, but no – they would rather dream up a hamstring injury and hobble off into that hazy, humourless middle distance reserved for sulkers and chokers. They should be struck firmly and frequently with a blunt object – preferably Hugh Bladen – and taken to a training camp for the South African paralympic team to be taught a few hard truths about grit, guts and gratitude.

There is of course another breed – the Unlucky Loser, whose AGMs are chaired by that Job in cricket flannels, Andrew Hudson. If you are an Unlucky Loser, you can have so much talent and temperament that it is running down your leg onto the pitch, but things still will not go your way. A cover drive will rebound off a passing seagull onto your stumps; an earthquake will trip you up while starting off for a sharp single. Unlucky Losers are nice guys, for the most part, but you would not want to be on an aeroplane with them.

By contrast, consider Mark Boucher, who is that most glorious sporting treasure – a lucky player. He will drop the straight balls that miss the bat, and snag the impossible catches; his eyes-shut slog six will win the match. We need that sort of luck at least as much as ability. If our team is ever again to reach the World Cup final, it will be due to training and tactics and even talent. If we are ever again to win, however, it will only be because, when it truly matters, we are not Losers.