when losing is actually winning

liam and i headed down to myrtle beach for a soccer tournament at the end of april (while chris and susanna headed to the north carolina coast for a Y princess weekend) with grand hopes of winning the whole thing.  his team were seasoned veterans at this point, chock-full of talent with their eyes on the prize.  to further intimidate their opponents, this is how the entire gunners roster looked heading into the first game:

(the lighting isn't great, but it he has a bright blue streak in his hair)

so there they were, pumped up, adrenaline flowing ... and they lost.  it was close, but they lost.  and they were devastated.  a few of the dads walked them through the possible scenarios -- it was a round-robin format, so they actually still had a chance of winning the tournament IF they won the rest of the games and IF team that just beat them lost and IF their goal differential was larger, yadda yadda yadda.  i sort of tuned it out while we moms tried to come up with a game plan to lift their spirits.

and what better way to do that than a round of putt-putt?

one of the best mini golf courses we've visited ... 

and with an enthusiast like liam, we've seen quite a few

and then we headed to lunch, undoubtedly scaring off any poor patrons who happened to be out on the deck with our large group.

we returned to our gorgeous (and expensive) hotel for some down time, per the coach's instructions.  he wanted them well-rested before taking on their second game, where they'd hopefully win and put themselves in possible contention for the overall prize.  we all looked out of the windows sort of longingly at the beach and glittering pool below, frustrated that they were right there and we couldn't enjoy them.  ("absolutely no swimming," the coach jordan reminded them.  "it wears out your legs too much and we need all the energy we can get for this next round."  whatever, dude.)  and if we won that second game, then i knew we'd be pulling out of the parking lot at a totally unreasonable hour of the morning on sunday morning for the championship round.  "how was the beach?" people would ask after we returned home.  "i have no idea," i'd reply.  "but it looked nice from our 15th story window."

but my dream came true: their second game wound up in a hard-fought tie.  and while the more competitive folks in our group were disappointed, i was secretly pumped.  we'd actually be able to take advantage of all our resort had to offer.  no crack-of-dawn sunday departure; no required avoidance of the pool or beach.  the boys might have to play the consolation round with slightly more fatigued legs than had we skipped swimming, but really, who cared at that point?

the saying goes that winning isn't everything, which is true, of course.  but i'd like to add a new saying to the list: sometimes losing is winning too.  for while we never won a game that weekend (winding up with that one close loss and two ties), we certainly were victorious in many other ways.

the blissful face of a non-winner