By Jim Nichols

The Olympics on television are thrilling for their examples of skill, strength, and agility. Some of the individual performances, especially, are hard to believe. How can one person twist a body that way, jump, and do it repeatedly? Or swimming is an exhausting activity; how can someone do that at a high speed for several minutes?

Also on display is a lot of losing; only a few are winners. We all know about losing, do we not?

My high school track experiences included two individuals whose lack of a victory instructed me.

Lew Merriman was a national caliber middle-distance runner at Wichita State University. He and my father were employees at the same factory, and we became friends; he gave me coaching tips about running. In the U.S. Olympic track and field trials for 1960, Merriman needed to be in the top three finishers in the 800 meters to make the Olympic team. He finished 0.5 seconds away from that goal; three others made the team.

Cliff Cushman (of whom I have written before) was on that 1960 U.S. Olympic track team. A student at the nearby University of Kansas, I had seen him run multiple times and was a great admirer. In those same 1960 Rome Olympics, he finished second in the 400-meter hurdles, the track event that I believe is the most difficult. The following year, he visited my high school and brought his silver medal for us to see and handle; it was a memorable event for me. In the subsequent 1964 Olympic trials where he hoped to qualify and improve on his previous second-place finish, he caught a spike on one of the hurdles and fell to the ground; his running career was over. Subsequently serving as a fighter-bomber pilot in the Air Force, he died in Vietnam in 1966 just after I graduated from college.

Both of those men taught me about winning and losing.

Many of us have enjoyed competitions, athletic or otherwise. I am fearful, however, that our enjoyment has misled us as to the gifts that occur from participation rather than victory. Entering a competition has a positive effect by causing us to improve our skills and do our best. The trap is, however, that we can quickly get sucked into seeing all of life as a series of competitions. That is an unsustainable way to live.

An observer stumbled into a gymnasium where a group of upper twenties men were playing a pickup basketball game. These men were accomplished former college level players, and their skills still showed it. As the observer watched, however, he saw something else. Up and down the court they ran, and with each cycle, they ran more slowly. They stopped with their hands on their knees and their faces showed disbelief at their fatigue. It was as if for the first time they were recognizing some physical limitations that they had presumed only those older had.

I have been there, and I suspect you have too.

I watched an interview with a world-class gymnast from the past, a person famous in her day. Her universal truth was, “I began to realize that there was always someone just a little younger than I was, just a little stronger and faster than I was. There was always someone just behind me pushing.”

If we base our worth on accomplishments, that is the inevitable conclusion we each come to. If we see life as a series of performances, we become caught in multiple competitions. Furthermore, there is always another competition awaiting us.

Increasing age is our great teacher here. Still trying to do our best, we learn to adjust our goals. We become less judgmental both of ourselves and others. We become better at seeing what is important and what is not.

Little is said in the Bible about competition. Paul alludes twice to running, but his competitors are not identified, and he seems to emphasize “finishing the race;” he is striving to reach a personal faith goal.

Only once is true competition encouraged as the writer of Romans encourages us to “. . . outdo one another in showing honor.” 

I would gladly accept the silver medal for that. 

Jim Nichols is a retired Abilene Christian University biology professor and current hospital chaplain