STEELE SPORTS

With parents taking to school board meetings to express concerns regarding Medford’s athletic department and the school’s inability to win games over the course of the past five years, I think it’s the appropriate time to offer a take on why the Tigers have found themselves in this position.

I understand that high school sports are meant to be fun and offer an opportunity for student-athletes to learn critical character-building lessons.

However, when teams lose at the pace that Medford has in recent memory, adverse effects begin to wear on the community as a whole.

The most glaring issue that I believe Medford is facing is that its programs have begun to accept defeat as the norm.

No student-athlete every represents their school colors hoping to lose games, but when they’ve gone years without any positive results to justify their hard work, they also don’t take the field expecting to win.

This not only results in lower fan attendance, but lower roster numbers as well.

Students won’t invest their time into a team that they don’t believe is capable of change. Hence why Medford’s football roster has seen the majority of its roster be comprised of underclassmen and not upperclassmen.

There is an age-old coaches’ question that comes to mind when analyzing this situation: “Do you love to win, or do you hate to lose?”

The simple answer to that question would be that athletes should hate losing more than they love to win, because every loss should be used as a lesson.

When teams lose game-after-game with no end to the streak in sight, it means that they are no longer learning.

My favorite Medford coach to work with in my half-decade experience in town was easily former wrestling skipper Dennis Whitman.

Not only did Whitman earn his respect and authority on the mats by leading by example, he carried an infectious mentality that the Tigers were going to set goals and accomplish them through hard work.

Despite having low roster numbers, he always turned away the idea of joining a co-op, and would always pour all of his time and energy into making his athletes reach their full potential.

His most obvious example of a successful pupil was three-time state champion Charley Elwood.

Elwood wrestled the majority of his high school career with a bad back issue that kept him from competing at the level he had worked tirelessly to achieve.

Despite the adversity, Elwood never quit on himself and managed to earn three titles.

He also set an example for his brother, Tommy, who went on to win a state title as a junior after battling through a significant head injury in his semifinal match.

Whether Medford needs to add new coaches, change its practice schedules, increase its fundraising or even just hold an athletics department meeting with student-athletes is left to be seen.

I do believe that times will be better for the Tigers, but nothing will change until the program as a whole decides that this losing culture is no longer acceptable.