When Winning
Really Matters

J. Denny Weaver

I am a sports fan and I “own” teams in most sports, college and professional. One reason I like sports is that it offers almost the only arena within which I can be unapologetically partisan without feeling guilty.

I freely admit that games are more fun when my teams win. Thus I am similar to many other people who root for athletic teams—from the local high school to national teams in Olympic or World Cup years. Some retain childhood loyalties even after many miles and years separate them from proximity. Others grow new loyalties as circumstances evolve. But in every instance, wins matter at one level or another. And a win really matters when it signifies history moving in a new trajectory.

Partisanship often goes beyond the emotions of a win or loss. Winning can take on connotations of superiority. With a win a school can become a better place to study. A winning city or state is upgraded as a place to live. A win in a big rivalry game confers the presumed superiority of “bragging rights.” The medal count during Olympic games is emphasized. Americans want to proclaim, “We’re Number One!” which means “We are the best country in the world!”

We still hear regularly about the “miracle on ice,” when the United States defeated the Russians in hockey at the 1980 Winter Olympics. Coming in the aftermath of the Vietnam debacle, the Watergate fiasco, the Iran hostage crisis, and the Russian’s rekindling of the Cold War with their invasion of Afghanistan, this victory enabled the nation to feel that it had once again attained its rightful place on top of the world. Even thirty years later mention of that game evokes patriotic pride.

Although I am a partisan rooter, I am bothered by the implied claim of superiority behind the chant of “We’re Number One.” I am particularly uncomfortable when it concerns nationalistic posturing.
Virtually invisible in the nationalistic celebration of the “miracle on ice” is the fact that the team was not nearly the absolute underdog the national mythology has purveyed to enlarge the victory—the team was actually composed of disciplined, fast skaters, thirteen of whom played in the National Hockey League with several enjoying long and distinguished careers. In addition, this win did not even earn the gold medal—the U.S. team still had to defeat Finland to achieve gold.
This kind of “mattering”—“We’re Number One and we deserve it”—pales in comparison with two other national situations of winning and losing in my recent experience.

One game concerned the Congo. My wife and I spent March 2009 in the Congo with Mennonite Central Committee. My assignment was to present theology lectures in four different university settings. It was a particularly exciting opportunity for me. My lectures were translated into French for presentation, and I was hoping to handle question-and-answer in French, using the French language skills that I had learned during an MCC term in 1965-68.

We arrived in Kinshasa on a Thursday, with the first lecture scheduled for the following Monday. The long weekend for acclimation was welcome, but I was anxious for Monday, when I would see how adequate my language skills were to the occasion.
I was reviewing my lecture yet one more time on Sunday evening when the phone call came. I learned that the soccer team of the Congo, les Léopards, playing in the Ivory Coast, in a game that I had not been aware of, had just defeated Ghana 2-0 to win the African All Nations Championship. The president had declared Monday a national holiday, and everything would be closed in celebration. This meant, of course, cancellation of Monday’s lecture.

My immediate response was self-directed pique. Considerable effort and money had been expended to get me to the Congo for these lectures. If a lecture was now cancelled, I small-mindedly told myself, it was their loss. Looking at this national celebration through my particular lens, I saw only nationalism rearing its head. As a guest, it seemed that I just needed to accept that.

And of course the overjoyed Congolese were expressing national pride. A newspaper headline proclaimed, “The Leopards are Kings of Africa.” For days, I had only to say “How about those Leopards!” to elicit big smiles and stories about where someone was when he heard the news or what he had done in the big celebration. As my lens got better adjusted, I saw that it was a much bigger deal than I had first realized.

Eventually I discovered yet another layer of meaning that rendered my initial reaction very small. This celebration was not just chest-thumping on the order of the United States claiming its deserved top status. Rather the Congolese victory and the national celebration needed to be seen in the context of the Congo’s colonial history and post-colonial struggle.

The people of the Congo were brutalized and their natural resources stolen for his personal benefit by the colonial regime of Belgium’s King Leopold. The situation changed little after Belgium wrested control from Leopold and made the Congo a colony of Belgium. Since the native population was not allowed to pursue higher education, at independence in 1960 the young nation was left without real know-how in governing or in maintaining basic systems. 

After independence, almost to the present, and certainly with the connivance of the United States, the exploitation of the Congo continued. One cannot read this story in Adam Hochschild’s book, King Leopold’s Ghost, without experiencing some anger.

As the result of the events Hochschild recounts, the Congo today is a country with many problems—high unemployment and few jobs that pay regular salaries, a postal system that no longer functions, and no infrastructure of roads or railroads, to name only a few. In many cases, there is a prevailing feeling among the people that help needs to come from outside because the Congolese themselves cannot make things work. This passivity and fatalism is an ongoing legacy of colonialism.

This troubled post-colonial situation is the context in which to begin to understand the impact of the victory of les Léopards for the people of Congo. As I learned from a newspaper account, with a Congolese coach and minimal expenses and training opportunity, les Léopards had defeated a supposedly superior team that had spent more than a million dollars on a European coach. This result demonstrated, the writer said, that beyond football, the solution to the problem of the Congo concerned “people, organization, confidence, and will power. And above all, it was love of country. The achievement of the Leopards in Abidjan was there to contradict the wagging tongues of the Congolese pessimists” (Le Potentiel, 9 March 2009, p. 2).

In other words, this win was a demonstration first of all to the Congolese people, and then to the world, that contrary to the learned legacy of colonialism and the low opinions held by foreigners, the Congolese are capable of taking control of their lives and their country and making it work. If this achievement is possible in football, the writer added, “it is also possible in the political, economic, and social sectors.” The article concluded, “This is the important national lesson to draw from this victory of our national football team. Bravo les Léopards” (p. 2).

I heard a variation of this application of the victory when I began my lectures. A pastor called the victory “a gift from God.” Many people still accept the older missionary message that “blessed are the poor,” which tends to create a passivity while they wait for God to change things or for help to arrive from outside the Congo. Against that backdrop, this pastor was seeing the victory of les Léopards as a summons to activity, a call to actively confront the injustices of their lives rather than waiting passively for rescue from elsewhere.

This experience with one game in the Congo set up some of my interest in the 2010 soccer World Cup, which was hosted by South Africa. With the rest of the world and some Americans, I was enthralled by this truly world tournament (in contrast to baseball’s “World” Series between North American teams). South Africa was the first African nation to host the World Cup. Five African teams were among the thirty-two teams who qualified for South Africa. 

Commentators frequently pointed out that all of Africa hoped that African teams would fare well in this first World Cup played on “home” turf. Unfortunately, only Ghana was among the sixteen teams who advanced from pool play to the knockout phase.

Ghana played the United States in the round of sixteen. This game split my rooting interests. On the one hand, with Africans of many nations now behind Ghana and my Congo experience still fresh, I could guess what a win by Ghana would mean. (To begin to perceive the significance of this African solidarity, image the improbability of United States fans rooting vociferously for Canadian or Mexican teams simply because they are fellow North Americans.)

On the other hand, I also wanted the United States team to win—not for national pride but because a win for the U.S. would raise the profile of soccer at home and move the country a bit closer to joining the rest of the world in appreciating this truly global game. As the game progressed I tipped ever-so-slightly to the side of victory for soccer, but I was genuinely happy for Ghana and for Africa when Ghana won 2-1.

When Ghana played Uruguay in the round of eight, I was fully engaged for Ghana and aware of their significance for Africans. An announcer ticked off African cities where people were hanging on the outcome. When he mentioned Kinshasa, it seemed personal—I had exchanged email about the World Cup with a friend I made during our stay in the Congo.

This game was memorable. Ghana scored as the first half ended to lead 1-0. Uruguay tied the game 10 minutes into the second half. The teams battled hard for the remainder of the half, and through the 30 minutes of overtime. In the final seconds of overtime, following a flurry in front of the goal, on what would have been the last play of the game, Ghana hit a sure goal on the net. 

However, a Uruguayan player on the goal line used his hand to stop the ball. A “handball” in that situation calls for an automatic disqualification for the offending player and suspension for the next game, and it awards a penalty kick to the other team.

Penalty kicks are converted at least 75 percent of the time. The player taking the kick for Ghana had successfully converted two penalty kicks in earlier games. A win for Ghana seemed imminent, and it would be the farthest advance ever by any African team in World Cup competition. One successful kick, and all Africa would rejoice.

As the player who would take the penalty kick stepped to his mark, a TV commentator intoned, “He has the weight of Africa on his shoulders.” His kick clearly beat the keeper, but it was a couple inches too high. It hit the cross bar and skipped over the net.

This devastating miss forced the game to be decided in a dreaded shoot-out, in which players from each team trade penalty kicks until one team has an unbeatable advantage. Ghana lost in the shoot-out.
Uruguay’s team exulted, Ghana’s players wept. After being only a penalty kick from victory, it was a crushing loss. The TV commentator called it “one of the cruelest exits ever from the World Cup.” I pictured my desolate friends in Kinshasa.

Ghana’s loss left me shaking. I was probably too wrapped up in thinking how meaningful it would be for an African team to advance. I went outside and walked around my neighborhood for a while to shake it off.

Of course games are only games, and their will always be winners who celebrate and losers who grieve. But, yes, some wins do matter more than others. I still check the results of Bluffton University teams on the Internet. This past winter I added the Milwaukee Bucks to my stable of teams after I attended a game with my grandsons on a reduced-price ticket. After more than 50 years of loyalty, I still hope to see the Cubs win a World Series.

I appreciate Uruguay’s win. With the second smallest population of countries in the World Cup, they rightfully celebrate having advanced the farthest from among the football powers of South America.
But now these months later, I am still thinking about what an African team’s win would mean for Africa—not only a chance for a little continent-wide breast-beating, but an opportunity for post-colonial Africa to show the world what it is capable of. Perhaps the fact that I am still thinking about it shows that they did in fact make that statement.

—J. Denny Weaver, Madison, Wisconsin, is Professor Emeritus of Religion at Bluffton University. For twenty-four years he was Bluffton’s Faculty Athletic Representative and attended all athletic league meetings and the annual NCAA convention.