Losing sucks. It’s the absolute worst feeling in the world, and anyone who tells you that losing is okay is lying to both you and himself. The sensation is like a colony of fire ants gnawing away at your inner abdominals, spitting their venom all over your insides until you feel you have to scream to release the pain. You put in hours of effort during the week practicing the same stupid motions and plays over and over, and then, after time runs out and the lights go off, you’re left with nothing but an aching sense of hurt and regret.
Nothing you fans say to us will make us feel worse than what we’re already saying to ourselves. “You’re a loser,” “You guys suck,” “Why don’t you practice more?”; these are nothing compared to the internal monologue of someone who has ferociously competed for a win and come up short. It doesn’t matter what the player’s job is or how much he played; when the team fails to win, it’s on all of you, and all of you feel like crap. What could I have done better? Where could I have made more of a difference? Why didn’t I execute that job perfectly? All these and more are running endless circles through our minds, a ceaseless train of mocking self-loathing.
But we can’t show it. We can’t acknowledge it, can’t give voice to it, can’t let the bitter sting of defeat shout its pain to the world, because we have to get ready for next week.
Players have to take all those voices, all those nasty little thoughts, and wall them off behind mental barriers so high and thick they make the Great Wall of China look like a sand castle at high tide. You have to push it aside and do your best to forget the pain even exists, because if you let it affect the outcome of the next game, that deadly spiral will crush you until there’s nothing left but bitter regrets and shattered dreams. You have to believe that you can move on and forget the past, because there’s not one damn thing you can do to change it now; actions have been performed and judged and found wanting—your effort and intent was simply not good enough that day.
It fades after a while, the angry introspection of defeat, but it’s always there, always lurking in that mental prison, pacing restlessly behind its bars like a caged tiger, eyes agleam with savage hunger to rend and tear. You can never let that beast out, though, lest it wreak havoc on your life and on the lives of those around you. Some placate it with alcohol; some with religion; some with sex; some even tame it with the hard-earned serenity of acceptance, the realization that what’s done is done and no one can change the past no matter how much it hurts.
So while we may put on brave faces and tell you, “This game’s behind us, we’re focusing on next week,” don’t ever make the mistake of thinking that we don’t care, that we don’t feel the loss a hundred times more keenly than you do. Don’t think that it doesn’t add up over the weeks and years until sometimes we want to rage at the world at the top of our lungs.
We’re just better at hiding it than you are.