Losses are hard. Your first loss of the season, after seven straight wins, even harder. Both the JV and Varsity Saugus High School Centurion Football teams suffered their first loss of the season at the hands of their biggest crosstown rival. Both teams are now 7-1.

Losing is hardest when it feels like a stolen win. That’s how the JV team was feeling after a very questionable call early in the first quarter resulted in a “fumble” recovery and touchdown for the opposing team in purple. It was a hard way to start the game, but Saugus fought back and tied the game with 2 minutes to play. And then allowed the purple team to march down the field to kick a field goal for the win with just under 3 seconds left in the game.

It’s often said that we learn more from our failures than from our successes. But I think that depends on your attitude. You have to be open to learning from a failure, admit it’s a failure, before it can teach you anything. Mindset is everything.

We have a quote taped to one of the walls in our home. It is attributed to Arnold Schwarzenegger and reads, “You can have results or excuses, but not both.”

After the game, the boys were devastated. There was a lot of talk about that “bad call” in the first quarter. The prevailing attitude? Our perfect season was stolen from us. And if they are to truly learn from this loss, the first thing the coaches are going to need to do is get the team to dismiss that kind of talk and simply say, “we lost.” No excuses.

Our boys fought hard through adversity and simply came up short. They lost. The win wasn’t stolen. The first step to learning from your failure is admitting you’ve actually failed. Better results will follow.

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