Exactly.

My daughter played soccer for Kennesaw State University. Her junior year, they won their conference, which put them in the NCAA Tournament. Luck of the draw, they got Florida State (ranked #2 in the nation at the time) for the first round of the tournament in Tallahassee. Kennesaw State was an excellent team for a conference like the Atlantic Sun, and they could hold their own against many of the big conference teams. But against #2 in the nation? Most people would have said they didn't have a prayer of winning... and they would have probably been right.

As it turned out, they did lose pretty big to Florida State. I was at that game. And what I saw was a Kennesaw State team that was determined to win. They weren't just playing to see if they could have a few positive things happen. They hadn't predecided they were going to lose the game. They prepared for that game to win it. They played the game with every intention of winning. I can guarantee you they wouldn't have done as well as they did if they had gone into the game with the mindset that there was no way they could win.

My daughter (center midfielder) was up against FSU's center midfielder who was the leading scorer on their team and one of the top women's soccer players in the country. There was once or twice during the game that this girl put a fancy move on my daughter and got around her. But when it was all said and done, FSU's star player didn't score a goal and wasn't much of a factor in the game. As you can imagine, I was extremely proud of my daughter. I can guarantee you my daughter was playing to win!

I can't believe we're even discussing this. How did some of these guys ever even get to this level in our profession with the self defeating mentality they display here?