Every Saturday morning for all of autumn of 1999, with peepers in my eyes and a white cotton turtleneck under my jersey, I arrived at the elementary school gymnasium to run the wrong way down the carpeted court and touch the kiddie-sized basketball once all season. With a gusto that could be called respectable but not impressive, I supported my team with my shiny white Keds and my impeccable, parentally-enforced attendance record.
Pardon the humble brag, but I carried the team. And since this is YMCA recreational league basketball we are talking about, I truly mean I carried the team. All you have to do is show up to play, and your whole team gets a trophy.
You can tie your shoes during the free throw line-up and get a trophy.
You can stop mid-hustle and wave to your parents, who vehemently point you toward the correct net, and still get a trophy.
Traveling with the ball is only moderately frowned upon, and most certainly does not stand in the way of receiving — yes, that’s right — a trophy.
Even the other players — all male, as I was the only female on the team — who cried after each lost game were eventually bestowed with the carved plastic basketball engraved with our team name and season of play. “The Chicago Bulls. Fall 1999.” Yes, that is correct, the Chicago Bulls playing in Richmond, Va. Oh, what’s in a name?
Needless to say, I was pleased with myself, leaving the season guns blazing with the hype of victory encouraged by the No Child Left Behind mentality which permitted some coach somewhere to grace me with a trophy. Of course, I had not the slightest intention of ever relapsing into the Godforsaken realm of team sports. My disinterest was not for lack of confidence in myself, but more lack of loyalty to my team. I knew so long as the Bulls recruited another warm body to replace me, the trophies would continue to roll in. I won’t flatter myself in thinking I earned that plastic glory fair and square in those days. I just showed up.
Yet my present situation is far from the same. The competitive spirit runs deep in all Wahoo blood. Deny it all you will — say you are resistent to the unhealthy riptide of wanting to be the best — but somewhere deep in your bones there is some will to win. Unlike the open arms of kindergarten rec leagues, Thomas Jefferson’s haven tells you to try and fail as long as it possibly takes to win. Not great for the stress levels, I can say that. But this environment encourages, and sometimes aggressively forces, creativity.
I do not mean creativity with a capital C: the fine and performing arts. The University actually hinders these by enacting strict barriers to participation in curricular arts. What I am referring to is creativity with a little c: imagination and originality. If all you have to do is show up to get the trophy, there is absolutely no incentive to react or criticize or improve or create.
I can say competitive drive in general is a natural method for drawing people to innovate, so long as new ideas are praised. But somehow this hallowed University ecosystem neglects a key factor in the value of a competitive atmosphere. We deny failure.
This seems silly, since failure alone prevents singularity. We can’t all be perfect, lest we all be the exact same, which would be utterly boring. For competition to encourage creativity, failure must be present and, more importantly, accepted — and not just with a stiff-upper-lip. When failure knocks, we need not let it stand in the doorway. We must usher it in and — God forbid — let it make itself at home for a while.
Why failure has become so stigmatized here, I know not. There is the impression academic slip-ups and bad days belong in the closet or under the rug. We create the illusionary status quo that we are all natural achievers, when we could just as easily embrace the actual status quo that we are all just human beings.
Those who shun failure and move on to the next adventure without looking back are doing themselves a disfavor by shirking the opportunity to try again, and try differently. We bring it upon ourselves to think certain methods are bad, when really they are just different and need further investigation.
Until we accept our human incapacity for perfection, we cannot embrace competition as a powerful catalyst for creativity. So what if you get it wrong the first time? That’s the point. The competition of college is only an intermediate piece to ultimate success. So long as things go semi-smoothly, we all get a trophy at the end with a piece of sheepskin. And maybe if we trip and fall a little along the way, we can actually come out with not only a sheepskin, but also a more open mind.
Kate’s column runs biweekly Thursdays. She can be reached at k.colver@cavalierdaily.com.
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