All of a sudden, a civilized game of basketball converted into a boxing match.
Editor's note: This the second of a series of excerpts taken from Brady Poppinga's book "True Spirit of Competition".
As far back as I can remember I was always extremely competitive. This intense competitiveness didn't always bring out my best, especially when I competed against my older brother.
Every time I tried to compete against him one on one, our matchups turned into fist fights. I never remember finishing a game with him.
In a chapter in my book I tell a story of when my brother and I attempted to play a one-on-one basketball game.
This kind of extreme competitiveness, or better said, my justification of being overly obsessed with winning, was not only a problem when I competed against my brothers, but it was also a problem that I dealt with whenever I competed in any setting while growing up.
This obsessive win-at-all-costs behavior lead to strained relationships and questions about my character.
It was a very frustrating one-on-one basketball game against my elder brother. It seemed as though no matter what I did I could not get the ball over his long, outstretched arms and hands. He was blocking most of my shots, and he was making sure I knew he was doing a good job of it.
Every time he blocked a shot, he would taunt me by saying, “Swat!” with a heckler’s voice. Anger boiled inside of me because all I could think about was that I was destined for a sure-fire defeat at the hands of my elder brother. I knew very well that if he beat me, I would never hear the end of his badgering and bragging. I wanted the bragging rights. I needed to figure out some way of altering the eventual outcome so I could beat him.
As I schemed in my mind how I was going to beat him, I realized since I was a lot shorter than he was, I wasn’t going to be able to block many of his shots. Since he was just as quick as I was, I wasn’t going to be able to outmaneuver him neither. After exhausting all the ways I could possibly beat him in my mind, I realized I had limited options.
I got desperate. I wrapped my mind around the thought that it was better to defend my pride at all costs than to fall into the abysmal, dark hole of failure. I figured the only way to avoid the inevitable misery of defeat and failure was to play dirty. I needed to catch him in a place of vulnerability.
When he went up to take his next shot, I pushed him in his exposed ribcage as hard as I could, hoping that would alter the inevitable outcome of defeat. Since my brother, being my opponent, in this moment formed the greatest threat to my glorious triumph, my defense mechanism targeted him, even if that meant physically injuring my own kin to come out victorious.
He clearly wasn’t too happy I did that. As soon as he recovered, he dropped the basketball and charged me like a bull. All of a sudden, a civilized game of basketball converted into a boxing match. Instead of finishing the game, we began to exchange blows.
During my upbringing, this type of hypercompetitiveness, of not ever wanting to concede a victory to my brothers, that was on display in a game of one-on-one basketball was all too common. Growing up as the middle brother of three was the perfect breeding ground for a highly competitive childhood. My elder brother, Casey, and my younger brother, Kelly, were very capable, athletic, smart, successful guys who had strong work ethics. Because of that, I had my work cut out for me to not only stay even with them, but also to attempt to surpass them in all we directly or indirectly competed in.
Editor's note: Go here to read more, or here for a downloadable ebook to mobile devices.
Brady has played for the Green Bay Packers, St. Louis Rams and Dallas Cowboys. He has worked as a motivational speaker and studied business management at BYU.