I come from a family, especially on my dad’s side, where competitiveness is aggressively required. By competitiveness I do not refer to everyone wanting to play hard to win and have a good time doing it, possibly strengthening family bonds or making lasting memories. When I say I grew up in a competitive environment, I mean kids were not allowed to play cards with the adults until they could hold tight to a Phil Ivey level of concentration, skill, and silence. There was and still is an equal requirement to be able to take part in games or activities, so regardless of age, education, background, or any other factors, a new player is expected to follow the rules of the game and house just as fervently as someone who has been playing under them for fifty years.

That level of expectation quickly showed who was ready to rise up to the challenge, facing mentors, family, and friends fearlessly and ruthlessly. It also showed who didn’t value winning, who didn’t have the heart of a champion, and who thought winning a family game wasn’t as important as merely playing the game. Countless times over the years a new person would come over as a friend or friend of a friend brought them to join game night. The more the merrier of course, we always wanted new members to join the family. The sequence always seemed to go along the same lines, they would walk in the door, be greeted cheerily by everyone, given food and drink and told to take a seat at the table. If they came as a ready challenger, we would all wind up playing the chosen game deep into the night until it came time to retire, the new comer leaving with the understanding they were welcome anytime after that point.

Seeing someone for the first time thrive in a hostile environment like that told us nearly all we needed to know about them, allowing us to welcome in a new member of the family. Refusing to hold anything back while also trying to make a good first impression said more about how trustworthy a person was than anything they could have said to us. More often than not though, when someone walked though that door into our lions den, they would fail to show the strengths the bonds my family was built on. Those who backed down under pressure often were never heard from or seen again after they left at the end of the game.         [The in-between of those two are a special breed rarely seen but beloved in our homes; they didn’t show the intense competitive spirit that drove the rest of us to fight for hours, yet they always came back for more night after night.]

As I grew, the competitive spirit in me grew as well, giving me an extreme desire to win, and a wicked hate for losing. Sports are the best outlet I have found to channel that desire and hate into, be it as a player or just as a fan of the game. As a fan, I always see other players through the lens of the desire to win. As cliche as it may be to anyone who has spent a large portion of their life listening to sports commentators, for me it almost always comes down to who wants it more, to who is going to fight tooth and nail to the bitter end to prove to themselves and the rest of the world they deserve to win more than their competitor.

Watching that battle is what draws me in and keeps me coming back for more.