Sacrifice in Water Polo: What Stories an Individual Game Tells

To the outside observer the premier league game I participated in two weeks ago was just a standard water polo game and the only story told was that of the actual game. One team won by six goals and the various individual statistics tell the story of what happened in the game, but on a much deeper level they tell the stories of the players lives. For example in the 3rd quarter one player had two goals on consecutive counter attacks, to the outside observer this may be nothing more than an exciting moment in the game but to that player and his teammates, they know that for the entire semester they have been up at 5:45 am every single day and doing brutal swim sets and scrimmages so they can be faster and more conditioned than the other teams, and when that player scored those two goals he knew that all of his sacrifice was paying off and it had been worth it. It is moments like this in a game where all of a player’s doubts of whether or not all the sacrifice was worth it are erased, they may come back after the game but at that one perfect moment of ultimate success it is all worth it and that is what motivates the player to keep conditioning and breaking themselves down year after year, because they want to reach that moment of glory again. It’s almost an addiction, to the player at the collegiate and international level, the game is not played just for fun anymore, in fact for most they don’t consider it fun at all. This raises the question if all these players aren’t having fun then why are they still playing, the answer is that they can’t find the moment of true satisfaction anywhere else and to them there is nothing more sweet than to know you outworked and are more talented than the opposition. It is a sort of validation for the lifestyle of the high level athlete, and it makes everything else bad in that person’s life go away.

In reality every player knows that glory is fleeting and soon he will be standing on the deck again before the sun has risen while the rest of the world comfortably sleeps and he will again wonder if its all worth it and how nice it would be just to be a normal college student. But then they remember the glory and they know that most of those other people will never even know the feeling of having true validation for your life happen in one moment, let alone attain it.

So, two simple counter attack goals in a low key weekend premier league game may mean nothing to anyone but the individual who scored them, and over time those goals will start to run together with other goals in the individuals mind and lose meaning. But until the next moment of glory those are what keep the player going, and keep him from giving up. Everyone knows that they can’t play forever, sooner or later your body will finally give out for good or you just won’t be good enough to reach the next level, but in order to avoid giving up your life and your dreams prematurely, you need hope. Hope for me came in the form of those two goals, they kept me going throughout the next week of awful conditioning, when my body told me to quit during practice, I was able to smile and think of the goals in the third quarter of a game that essentially meant nothing and know that I could never quit, not with more goals left to score.

This leads to the question, does this thinking keep people going just at high level sports or is this what keeps people from giving up in life? Is our desire to be the best inherent in all humans, or is this why some people are more successful than others because they have this desire?