Fight to Victory—Don’t Become a Victim of the Fight
Chicago Kickers Tournament Sept 2026
You’re down 0–2. The other team is controlling the game. The referee just made a terrible call. Your best shot hit the post. You’re tired. You’re frustrated. And there is still plenty of time left on the clock. Now watch what happens. Some players begin to get smaller. Their shoulders drop. They stop communicating. They complain about the referee. They blame teammates. They don’t make the run they would have made twenty minutes earlier. Eventually, they start playing as though the game has already been decided. But occasionally, you see another kind of athlete. The game gets harder—and somehow they get bigger.
They communicate more. They run harder. They encourage the teammate who just made the mistake. They demand the ball. They become more focused, not less.
They may still lose the game. But something important has happened: The fight didn’t defeat them before the final whistle ever had a chance to.
That is a lesson much bigger than soccer.
The Moment You Feel Most Defeated May Be the Moment You Most Need to Act Empowered
Life will not always go your way. Neither will sports. You will lose games you thought you should win. You won’t always make the team. Someone else may get the starting position. A coach may make a decision you disagree with. A referee may make a terrible call. You may get injured just when everything was going well.
And outside of sports, there will be difficult classes, friendship problems, rejection, disappointment, family challenges, and situations that genuinely aren’t fair. Those things hurt. You are allowed to be disappointed. You are allowed to be angry. You are allowed to cry. You are allowed to say, “This is hard.”
But then comes the important question: What are you going to do next? Because experiencing something difficult does not require you to surrender your power to it. Being in a fight does not make you a victim. How you respond to the fight helps determine who you become.
Don’t Confuse Losing With Being a Loser
There is an important distinction I want young athletes to understand. You can lose without being a loser. You can struggle without being weak. You can fail without being a failure. You can be treated unfairly without becoming powerless. And you can be hurt without allowing the thing that hurt you to define you.
Those distinctions matter. Because one of the dangers of repeated disappointment is that eventually we can stop describing what is happening to us and begin using it to describe who we are.
“I lost.” becomes “I’m a loser.”
“I’m struggling.” becomes “I’m not good enough.”
“Something unfair happened.” becomes “Nothing ever works out for me.”
That’s a dangerous transition. The circumstance has now become an identity. And once you believe yourself to be powerless, you begin behaving powerlessly.
Fight to Victory, Not to Become a Victim of the Fight
I want my children to learn to fight to victory, not become victims of the fight. And victory doesn’t always mean winning. That’s important. Sometimes the other team really is better. Sometimes you won’t get the position. Sometimes the decision won’t change. Sometimes the injury really will end your season. Sometimes life gives you circumstances that determination alone cannot fix.
So victory cannot simply mean getting the outcome you wanted. Sometimes victory is saying: This happened to me, but it will not decide what happens inside me. I will still prepare. I will still work. I will still learn. I will still show up. I will still treat people well. I will still look for what I can control. I will still move forward. That is a different kind of victory. And children need to practice it.
1) Watch the Athlete When the Game Turns Against Them
As parents, we naturally watch the ball. But sometimes I think we should watch our child instead. Watch them after the other team scores. Watch them after they make a mistake. Watch them when a teammate makes a mistake. Watch them when the referee makes a call against them. Watch them when the coach takes them out.
2) Who do they become when things aren’t going their way?
Do they throw their hands up? Blame? Complain? Stop running? Turn on teammates? Disappear emotionally? Or do they reset? Communicate? Recover? Encourage? Get back into position? Ask, What can I do now? That response may tell us more about the athlete they are becoming than anything they do when they’re winning 5–0. Because everybody looks resilient when life is going well. Resilience becomes visible when it isn’t.
Stop Giving Away Your Power
Blaming can feel good in the moment because it removes responsibility. It’s the referee. It’s the coach. It’s my teammate. It’s the field. It’s the weather. It’s my teacher. It’s my parents. It’s everybody except me. And sometimes other people genuinely are responsible for part of what happened. But here’s the problem: The more responsibility you give everyone else for your future, the less power you leave for yourself. If everything is someone else’s fault, then everything requires someone else to change before your life can improve. That is a terrible place to live. A stronger question is: What part of this is still mine?
Maybe you can’t control the referee’s call. But you control the next play.
You can’t control the coach’s lineup. But you control how you train.
You can’t control whether someone underestimated you. But you control whether you prove them right.
You can’t control everything that happens to you. You can control what you do with what happens to you. That is power.
Parents: Be Careful About Rescuing Too Quickly
This lesson is hard for parents too. When our children hurt, we want to fix it. We call. We email. We intervene. We explain why the coach was wrong. We tell them the teacher was unfair. We find someone to blame. Sometimes intervention is absolutely necessary. Children need adults to protect them, and genuine mistreatment should never be dismissed as a lesson in toughness. But not every disappointment is an injustice. Not every uncomfortable experience requires rescue. Sometimes our child needs us to say: “I know that hurt. What are you going to do next?”
That’s not indifference. That’s confidence. It tells the child: I believe you are capable of moving through this. We can comfort our children without convincing them they are powerless. We can acknowledge unfairness without teaching helplessness. We can support them without fighting every fight for them. Because eventually, there will be fights we cannot fight on their behalf.
Your Response Is Part of Your Reputation
There is another reason this matters for student-athletes. People are watching how you respond when things go wrong. Coaches notice. Teachers notice. Teammates notice. Parents notice. They remember the athlete who becomes destructive when benched. They also remember the athlete who is disappointed, takes a moment, and then gets up to support the team. They remember the person who makes excuses. And they remember the person who says: “That was on me. I’ll be better.”
Talent matters. But as athletes move higher, everyone becomes talented. Then coaches begin asking different questions. How does this player respond to adversity? Can I coach them? Can they recover from mistakes? Can they handle pressure? What happens when they don’t get what they want? Can I trust them when the game gets difficult? Because eventually, adversity isn’t an interruption to competition. Adversity is part of competition.
The Best Athletes Learn to Reset
One of the most powerful skills an athlete can develop is the reset. You missed the shot. Reset.
You gave the ball away. Reset.
Bad call. Reset.
You got scored on. Reset.
The first half was terrible. Reset.
Not because it didn’t matter. Not because you don’t care. But because the next moment still belongs to you. That is a skill worth practicing far beyond soccer.
Bad grade. Reset.
Didn’t make the team. Reset.
Friend disappointed you. Reset.
You made a poor decision. Own it. Learn from it. Reset.
A reset doesn’t erase what happened. It prevents what happened from owning what happens next.
Sometimes Victory Is Refusing to Let the Score Change You
We naturally teach children to fight for the win. I want mine to understand something even bigger. Sometimes you will fight with everything you have and still lose. The scoreboard may say 0–3. But I will still be watching. Did you quit? Did you blame everyone else? Did you turn on your teammates? Did you let frustration change your character? Or did you keep playing? Did you keep thinking? Did you keep encouraging? Did you keep fighting for the next ball even when the outcome seemed impossible? Because there are victories the scoreboard cannot measure. Sometimes victory is refusing to let the score change you.
Life Will Eventually Test This
One day the fight won’t be a soccer game. It will be something that matters much more. A rejection. A major disappointment. A failed exam. A lost opportunity. A relationship that ends. A career setback. An illness or injury. Something unfair. Something you never expected. Something you cannot immediately fix. And Mom and Dad may not be able to make it go away. That is why I want my children practicing now. Not practicing suffering.
Practicing response.
Learning that difficult emotions can be felt without being obeyed. Learning to ask for help without surrendering agency. Learning that disappointment doesn’t eliminate possibility. Learning that losing something doesn’t mean losing yourself. Learning to stand back up.
So Fight
To the young athlete: You will lose games. You will lose opportunities. You will be disappointed. You will make mistakes. People will sometimes underestimate you. And yes, sometimes you will be treated unfairly. Feel it. Talk about it. Learn from it. Ask for help when you need it. But don’t hand the struggle your identity. Don’t let one loss become a story about who you are. Don’t surrender tomorrow because today hurt. Don’t become so focused on what happened to you that you forget to ask what can still be done by you.
Fight to victory—not to become a victim of the fight.
And remember: Victory isn’t always changing the score. Sometimes victory is changing yourself. Sometimes it’s discovering how strong you can become because the game got hard. And sometimes the greatest victory of all is simply this:
Refusing to let the score change you.
