With the fall sports season in full swing, all students ever hear about is whether the teams won or lost. While it may be all fun and games for us in the stands, the players acquire a fierce sense of competition as they play their team sport. Ask any athlete and they will tell you that not only their friendships, but also their rivalries stretch off the fields and begin to cause issues that wouldn’t normally happen if they were on a team that was less competitive.

“[Competition is about] really wanting to beat the other person,” junior and backup quarterback Justen Holl said. “[The football team’s competitiveness] gives you life lessons while you are playing.”

While many people will say that being competitive is good, it is actually detrimental to society and is slowly making us too motivated for victory. Being competitive takes the fun out of games. I joined a recreational league when I first moved to Virginia with the intent of simply having some fun playing soccer. For me, it didn’t go so well. Everyone got up into each other’s faces when someone messed up, and whenever we won, my team was always gloated and rubbed it in the other team’s faces. In general, it was a toxic place to be. I made sure that I finished up the season but left as soon as possible.

Usually when people don’t want to be competitive and just want to have fun, they join a recreational league. When competitive people don’t get into the league, they also join a recreational league. When these two kinds of people meet, tension occurs.

“I have met some very competitive people in my life that were bad sports and made the games very unpleasant since they got upset with players on the team for not going for the ball or making the same mistake over and over again,” freshman Allison Martin said.

While there are many people in the school who just want to have fun, there are also people who play a sport for the competition. While competition is not always a healthy thing, it can be useful in some situations. When you are on a team and you get to the tournament, then you will want to be competitive. Times like these are when everyone gets competitive as a team instead of one or two people getting competitive and ruining the experience for everyone else. One person like this is sophomore Eric Kim; he doesn’t get as worked up as others but still likes to be competitive.

“I want to join debate because I like to argue with people and I want to win those arguments,” Kim said.

In the middle of the two, there is a good medium that works for all, but not everyone is able to get to this equilibrium and those who can find it still get worked up sometimes. If your dream is to be a sports player, then play your heart out and love the sports as much as you want, but don’t berate people for not being as good as you are.

When it comes to having to pick if you are going to be competitive or not, it will generally be better to focus on having fun. If you choose to be competitive and then start to lose, you might start acting too desperately. Overall, it’s better to be in the game just for fun because you will learn to enjoy the game, and not just enjoy winning.