Winning at All Costs: Two Perspectives

The word loser is a dirty word in our society. Call a man a son-of-a-bitch and he may grin; you've made him sound tough and manly. Call him a loser and he may fight you because you've made him sound unmanly. from "The Killer Instinct"

Americans are without a doubt the most competitive and win-oriented people in the world. I've always held the opinion that since America was started by a bunch of losers, Americans have felt compelled to prove themselves.

The Lombardis and Durochers of the sports arena have given us our metaphorical cliches for winning. "Winning isn't everything--it's the only thing." "Nice guys finish last."

But this compulsion to win-at-all-costs extends beyond the realm of sports. Chuck Colson's infamous "I'd walk over my own grandmother to win an election" statement summed up the Watergate mentality.

Vietnam became a debacle because two American presidents refused to be the first ones to "lose" a war, hopeless and wasteful as it might have been. We had to have "Peace with honor." The need to win is ingrained in the American character.

"The Killer Instinct" is Bob Cousy's personal account, in the context of being a product of American society, of his own will to win, and the devastating emotional and physical effects that this incessant need had upon him.

The Cooz

When we were kids, Bob Cousy the basketball player was someone we knew about only from the exalted tones with which our fathers talked of him. Most of his career was in the fifties, when the NBA was still a shoestring operation. We only saw him in action when local TV stations would occasionally trot out old Celtic film clips. Then we got a chance to witness the effortless behind-the-back passes that made him a legend and earned for the Cooz his niche as the greatest backcourt man of all time.

Cousy the basketball coach is more familiar to us. The piercing, hawklike eyes, the never-smiling countenance, the terse quotes to the press after a losing game, all indicated that Cousy was intense when it came to winning basketball games.

Cousy only mentions his playing career briefly. He talks about the pressure that he put on himself to win, how he saw each game as a personal vendetta against the opposing player, and how one championship with the Celts only increased the hunger for another one. He tells us what the killer instinct means--once you have an opponent by the throat you don't let him up, but keep him down. It's reminiscent of Bobby Fisher's comment that the enjoyment he derived from chess was not only winning, but crushing his opponent's ego as well.

Well Kept Resolve

But as a coach, success came much harder. His first season at Boston College produced a losing record, and he details what a gut-wrenching experience it was for him. At the break-up dinner at the end of the year he vowed that B.C. would never again have a losing season while he was coach. Cousy kept his word, for the Eagles became the top college team in New England, a national power, under his direction, playing in many NIT and NCAA post-season tournaments.

But for the first time Cousy began to question the toll that winning was taking on him psychologically and physically. Cousy confesses that the book originally was intended to be an expose of college recruiting practices, and he does devote a section of the book to talking about the coaching violations. His own bending of the NCAA rules, which he felt was necessary to make a winning team, made him wonder what the drive to win was doing to him morally.

A Loser, for Once

Life as a pro coach with the Cincinnati Royals was a different experience. A series of bad trades and poor draft choices left the Royals wallowing in the second division. For the first time in his life Cousy was confronted with the spectre of being a loser.

"The Killer Instinct" works because it is a highly personal account of what a few years of losing did to Cousy. This isn't Joe Willie or Clyde or Derek talking about the glamorous life. Cousy earned $100,000 a year as coach, but that didn't take away the sting of defeat. His fierce desire to win being thwarted unhinged him spiritually and drained him emotionally.

"The Killer Instinct" puts into perspective the notion of competition and winning that all of us can understand. We at Harvard have been "winners" most of our lives--class presidents, football captains, number ones, whatever, and these days of the pre-professional rat race have heightened our competitive instincts all the more.

But what happens if we suddenly stop winning, whether it's med school applications or with girlfriends? "The Killer Instinct" is Cousy's examination of the inherent problems that a winner faces when he suddenly becomes a loser, and what he has to say is applicable to all of us, regardless of whether or not we are in sports.