Katie Street calls herself a “consistent golfer.” She was the No. 1 player on her team at Boise State. She could be counted on to deliver a top-25 performance at any given tournament, but she wasn’t among the top tier of golfers nationally. So when she won a tournament at Nevada in the fall of her junior year, she was nervous on the final hole. As she lined up her putt on the last hole of the last round, she had to steady herself — and her putter. She knew she could win it. And she’d never felt that before. It was “agony,” she said. And then it was over.
After a celebration with the family members who were there to witness her victory and kudos from her teammates and coach, it was back in the van for the eight-hour ride to Boise. “It was kind of anti-climactic,” she said. “I mean, we had another tournament the next weekend, and all of a sudden (the fact that I’d won) didn’t matter anymore.”
So it goes.
Winning is supposed to feel good, and most of the time, it does. But the emotions that surround winning and losing are complicated, a stew of psychological and physiological reactions with long-term ramifications.
Street never again had such a spectacular performance. The expectations that she faced changed dramatically. She knew — and her coaches and teammates knew — what she was capable of giving.
The victory even made what happened the next spring more painful. At a tournament in San Jose, Street shot the worst round she had ever played in competition. She shed tears in the bathroom afterward.
“It was so hard to brush it off because everyone was looking at me to perform well,” she said. “And you know that golf doesn’t define who you are, but it does for other people when that’s all they know about you. People say it doesn’t matter (when you lose), but it does.”
Win or lose, student-athletes and coaches must refocus, re-energize and rededicate themselves to play again. Those involved in a major loss early in a season or in the first game of a doubleheader must learn how to remotivate their teammates and themselves, no matter how many or how few contests are left in the season.
Those on a hot streak must learn to deal with the heightened expectations that often accompany consistent success. And those in a slump must conquer feelings of self-doubt.
As the saying goes, it’s all in the mind.
A study by Simon Fraser University psychology professor Mario Liotti showed a connection between a physiological response in the brain and a loss or a poor performance. Liotti studied magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans of 14 Canadian swimmers who failed to make the 2004 Olympic team. The swimmers underwent MRI scans while watching a video clip of their nonqualifying performance.
Liotti found that a region of the brain that plans future actions (the pre-motor cortex) appeared inhibited when the elite athletes saw themselves “lose.” Liotti and Swim Canada psychologist Hap Davis suggested that the depression in that area of brain activity could explain why some athletes have difficulty refocusing after a particularly disappointing loss.
After the initial MRI and video-clip viewing, Davis conducted a short therapy session with the subjects and had them watch the clip a second time. The premotor cortex became more active after the therapy session, which could indicate that talking about a loss helps athletes recover.
Chris Carr, a sports psychologist at St. Vincent’s Sports Medicine Center in Indianapolis, took the research as a sign that athletes can change how they manage emotions in response to a loss. Sports psychologists now encourage athletes to focus on best performances by writing about them or doing imagery exercises. They also modify “self-talk” — a person’s internal dialogue — so that it becomes more encouraging.
Most student-athletes become accustomed to dealing with adversity and overcoming obstacles while they are competing and, through those experiences, they become equipped to handle difficult situations in the workplace and in life. The theory is great when it works, but the emotions surrounding winning and losing can be raw and even threatening.
Carr said outsiders don’t necessarily understand how emotionally exposed elite athletes can be. “These individuals take risks every time they compete,” Carr said. “The risk is you compete, and you may not win.”
Few other young people have their performances evaluated so publicly and so measurably. The challenge, clearly, is to put it all in proper perspective.
“How do you really assess your best performance?” Carr said. “Sometimes you put your best performance out there, and you know in your heart that you gave it everything you had, and you still lost. So you feel bad, but then sometimes you can recover and learn all the positive things and that generates the emotion that will keep you training harder, getting the little things right, and increasing the chance for success the next time you compete.”
In fact, that ability to build on experience is one of the defining traits of successful athletes. They are particularly good at working through adversity and turning defeat into a positive learning tool, a skill often learned at a young age.
Megan Brent, sports psychologist at the University of Kansas, said the value of those lessons is huge. “Nobody wins all of the time, so it’s about taking the losses and figuring out what you can learn from them,” she said. “A team could play its absolute best and still lose. We need to use the experiences as a way to make ourselves better.”
Success and failure are difficult enough for individuals to manage, but student-athletes almost always share the experience with teammates. That interaction further complicates an already difficult situation.
In 1992, Virginia Tech played a North Carolina men’s basketball team that would eventually win the NCAA title. The unranked Hokies were on a hot streak, including a double-digit win just days before. But the North Carolina game didn’t start well, and Virginia Tech was down by more than a dozen points out of the gate.
Then something started to sync, and Hokies guard Corey Jackson got on a hot streak. The team kept pace with the Tar Heels the rest of the game, and Jackson turned in his career-high scoring total. But Virginia Tech lost, 78-62, leaving Jackson to experience the conflict between individual achievement and team failure.
“You always see on television where a coach says, ‘Nobody should be talking on the bus ride back. We didn’t play well enough to talk,’ ” Jackson said. “That’s exactly what happened. We didn’t talk the whole way back from (the neutral site arena in) Roanoke.
“Yeah, I had a career high, but you want the team to win.”
How strong are those forces? Are the effects of circumstances like that potent enough to affect an athlete’s physical or mental health? Maybe, although the potential for good probably exceeds the peril of the threat.
Researchers have long known that endorphins, stimulated by exercise alone and heightened when accompanied by experiences like winning or a spectacular performance, have an analgesic effect that blocks the feelings of pain from reaching the brain. And Sam Maniar, a psychologist in the athletics department at Ohio State, said teams that are more cohesive and that work better together (often leading to victories) experience less stress.
But those effects typically are ephemeral. Those who fail to take the long view are missing the big character-development payoffs — life-long lessons about sportsmanship, fair play, personal responsibility and constant self-improvement.
“If we focus too much on the outcome, we lose the opportunity to get better through the process,” Carr said. “We need to educate people how to manage the short-term goals like getting the play right, the execution. If you focus on those things and use those as measurements, then oftentimes you can have success even though you didn’t win. … If you only focus on the outcome, you miss the opportunity to get better.”
Gary Bennett, a sports psychologist at Virginia Tech, echoes that approach by teaching student-athletes to emphasize factors other than the result of the contest. That’s because so many elements — including the performance of the opponent, weather conditions and officiating decisions — are outside the athlete’s control.
Bennett tries to help student-athletes focus on the controllable factors by meeting performance or process goals. Individuals and teams with the discipline to employ that approach are more likely to win, he said, because they are working for themselves instead of against an opponent.
Almost ironically, the feelings that go with winning tend to be regarded as a reward for a job well done. Conversely, the emotions surrounding losing and adversity often are considered opportunities for character development.
But the lessons that come from winning are just as important, Bennett said. “At Virginia Tech, there’s significant emphasis placed on respect — respecting the opponent, respecting the game, et cetera,” Bennett said. “Athletes who are winning can still learn the importance of continually developing this type of respect, which, hopefully, also helps develop a measure of humility.”
Sports psychologists encourage athletes, even those who lose, to compare performances to their own previous efforts rather than to those of others. Sports physician Paul Stricker, president of the American Medical Society for Sports Medicine, said those who succeed at this exercise will have an enormous advantage later in life because getting the “W” is not the ultimate purpose of athletics competition.
“Winning and success absolutely come in colors other than gold and places other than first,” said Stricker, president of the American Medical Society for Sports Medicine. “If one person gets the gold but doesn’t perform their best time, and another person gets 10th place but has the performance of a lifetime, who truly had success?
“The world and society don’t always get it right.”
Winning feels good … It makes participants feel successful, which can often build confidence that carries into other areas of life.
This type of learned composure is especially beneficial in pressure situations because winners know they can succeed at a high level. But being part of a successful team or performing exceptionally in any sport comes with burdens. The pressure rises as the success becomes greater, and any failure to meet those heightened expectations can be magnified.
“You have to look at success and victory as a situational variable,” said Chris Carr, a sports psychologist at St. Vincent’s Sports Medicine Center in Indianapolis. “At the moment you are successful or immediately after winning a competition, clearly you’re going to have more positive effect and more positive feelings than negative feelings. So, in that moment, you are going to have some celebration and excitement. It doesn’t necessarily mean that it will be permanent. And along with the positives of success come sometimes the burdens of expectations and pressures.”
The feelings after a victory may not be as intense as the bad feelings after a loss. Some athletes say that phenomenon is simple to explain: Winning is just what’s expected. You don’t play to lose — you play to win.
Winning is an expectation that can be met but not exceeded. But winning most often feels good. Beyond the sense of accomplishment, exercise and athletics competition produce endorphins, neurotransmitters that diminish feelings of pain.
In combination with exercise, winning heightens the effects of endorphins. Endorphins also block pain from reaching the brain and thus reduce stress through an analgesic process.
Those effects are heightened when the exercise accompanies a win or a spectacular performance. But the giddy effects of winning are transient.
Experts say that winning should be regarded as a constructive force only when the concept is properly defined and managed. Carr said “winning” simply can be an individual performing to the best of his or her ability. You may not win the race, he said, but you can do better than you ever have before, and that can represent success.
“I love to watch swimmers,” he said. “They touch the wall at the end of the race and have that calm and placid look on their faces. Then they look at the scoreboard and that’s when they get excited. It’s even better when they get excited about finishing fourth because they set their personal record by three seconds.”
Former UCLA basketball coach John Wooden, one of the greatest winners of all time, recently said that lasting satisfaction is found in preparation. “I miss teaching,” Wooden told ESPN.com. “I don’t miss the games ... I miss the daily practices.”
Carr said that those who can master such a mindset likely will find the key to athletics happiness. … losing hurts.
“Losing almost can be perceived as failure – a failure to reach your goals, a failure to perform the best you’re capable of performing,” said Chris Carr, a sports psychologist at St. Vincent’s Sports Medicine Center in Indianapolis. “It can be an externalized failure, the feeling that you failed in front of your family or friends or coaches or teammates.
“It can affect an athlete not just at the emotional level, but also at the cognitive level and attitudinal level. That’s why it’s sort of overwhelming. ‘Agony’ is such a descript word: It impacts at both levels — emotionally and mentally.”
In the worst case, losing can be interpreted as a threat to one’s very identity. That’s especially true among student-athletes, many of whom define themselves by competitive achievement.
Carr said the feeling is so strong that some athletes experience a traditional grieving process after a loss, including denial, anger, bargaining and general sadness. In most cases, the athlete will quickly work through to the acceptance stage and acknowledge the reality of sport, which is that every game has a winner and a loser. But that realization is not always easy to achieve, and the trappings in Division I athletics can complicate already difficult situations.
Losing can be a special ordeal for a 20-year-old when it happens before thousands of screaming fans and millions more watching at home. Feelings of blame and embarrassment are greatly magnified.
Not surprisingly, physical pain becomes a metaphor for losing: “I feel sick to my stomach” or “I feel like somebody kicked me in the gut.”
The thoughts represent more than words. Experts say that losing can increase stress levels and possibly lower immunities.
Paul Stricker, a former NCAA swimming student-athlete and current president of the American Medical Society for Sports Medicine, said losing can have physical liabilities that exceed the positive effects of exercise endorphins. They include the elevation of harmful chemicals like cortisol and those resulting from oxidative stress.
Cortisol is a necessary hormone that has positive effects, but it is produced at higher levels in the wake of stress. The excess can damage the body, both directly and indirectly, through increased blood pressure and blood sugar levels. It also can suppress the immune system and — along with oxidative stress — tear down body tissues, Stricker said.
Carr echoed the belief of legendary UCLA coach John Wooden that athletes can control only their own performance, not that of the other team.
“You’ve got to look at the controllable aspects of performance,” Carr said. “If you set goals accordingly, than if you’ve been successful in achieving those goals, even if you lose — and you’re not going to like the loss — you’re going to be better able to refocus and get better the next time. Because you’re going to continue to play, the resilience required to come back is key.”