Down by 1 point with 2 seconds left, Sonny turns around, as he always does, places his feet, and facing away from the basket shoots the ball over his head.

This is the championship game of the special Olympics, if they win this one, they win it all!

And Sonny has never even touched the rim by shooting the ball backwards.

(Spoilers ahead from the move Champions)

The suspense is intense, everyone is holding their breath, the ball goes in slow motion…

And…

The ball hits the rim, then…

Bounces off.

The Friends lose. (best basketball team name ever)

Coach, Woody Harrelson, hangs his head in disappointment. He doesn’t like to lose, he’s a seasoned coach. His job is literally to make sure the team he coaches wins.

But!

The Friends all cheer as the run excitedly over to Sonny!

You hit the rim, you hit the rim! They chant.

They didn’t really care about winning the championship, their relation to winning isn’t what the norm is. They play basketball because it’s fun and they love playing the game, not to win or gain acclaim.

They play to cheer on their friends, like this moment, when Sonny finally hit the rim for the first time ever. A completely meaningless feat to anyone else but them.

This made me question my own relationships to winning, and the general consensus of “winning.”

How the expected response, how everyone thinks they are supposed to act is; sad, defeated, maybe angry.

But we don’t have to respond to loss that way, we’ve just been told to act that way by coaches, maybe parents, or we’ve seen others act that way and mimicked them.

However, at the end of the game, we can always choose to cheer and be just as excited about losing as the other team is about winning.

Imagine if you got super excited every time you lost a game, or lost money, or got fired. You’d likely only be better equipped and in a better headspace for the next game, job, or investment.

You wouldn’t fear moves or actions that could be the winning moves in the next games because you’re less attached to the result, you’re just playing and having fun.

The last part I want to talk about from the movie is in the locker room at halftime Coach gives the team a pep-talk since they are down by a large spread. He tells each one of them why they are already champions, and it has nothing to do with basketball, it has to do with the difficulties they have dealt with and have overcome in their daily lives.

Standing up to an asshole boss.

Taking a shower when he was afraid of water.

Telling his sister he wants to move in with his friends.

They were already champions. They took that speech to heart and went back to play the second half.

They played significantly better, and closed the score gap, but still lost the game, but because of the speech, because it wasn’t tied to the result of an arbitrary game, the still believed they were champions.

Coach walks over and asks why they are cheering.

They say, “because we’re already champions coach, you told us that”

He the sees a new way of thinking and adopts a new belief, he the joins the Friends in their cheering and chanting.

What difficulties have you over come, when have you been courageous in your life?

What makes you a champion in the real world?

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