Love is a funny word. It’s something we throw around in all different aspects of our lives – sometimes meaning it, other times not. That is no different than love in the world of sports.

From a favorite sport to a favorite team, as a sports fan you can always pick out something that you really do love about the game. I’m a writer, so I don’t necessarily love teams and players as much as I love the hard-working, competitive attitude they bring with them to a game. It’s the fact that competitiveness isn’t something that’s made, it’s not something you can just turn on and off. You’re either born with a competitive edge or you’re not.

Tigers Wood and Michael Jordan were born with that edge. It’s similar to the childhood attitude that “anything you can do I can do better,” only it’s seen in the athletes that can actually do it better. One can be competitive, but that doesn’t necessarily make them a great player. Guys like Detroit Tigers’ third baseman Brandon Inge aren’t the greatest players in the world, but they work hard and have a competitiveness that you just can’t teach, which is why Inge’s jersey is owned by every 38-year-old woman in the Detroit area.

It’s why football at the Division II level is great. It may not have as glamorous and publicity as its Division I counterpart, but it’s so much more pure of a game. It’s not ruled by money and greed, it’s ruled by hard working, competitive players who just love to go out there and play football.

Competitive people succeed. Period. Sports are very much a reflection of the real, everyday life that you or I live. If you’re in the business world and you strive to be the best, chances are you’ve ended up working hard to get to where you want to be. Sports are the same way. Lazy players rarely reach the promise land; it’s the guys with determination and the need to always improve who succeed.

We teach our youth that sports are only a game and are just for fun. I hate that, I really do. I think you should teach kids at a young age that sports are about winning and building a competitive character. If you’re going to use sports as a teaching tool, teach them everything. I don’t see why a parent wouldn’t want to instill a sense of competitiveness in a young child’s mind.

Athlete or not, everyone has competitiveness. You need competitiveness because you need success. Everyone knows the one who works hardest and strives to be the best is actually the best. I love that you can easily pick out who the competitive hard workers are because there are so few of them. So few athletes put in the time and effort to be the best off the field, that when the try to put it all together on the field they come up short.

It’s a process, one that not everyone can master, but it is something that one can learn to appreciate – and we can all appreciate sports, right?

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