Simmons Says - If winning is everything, what does the rest mean?

“Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.” - Vince Lombardi
“Show me a gracious loser and I’ll show you a failure.” - Knute Rockne

Famous coaches say it.

“Winning solves everything.” - Tiger Woods
“Winning takes precedence over all. There’s no gray area. No almosts.” - Kobe Bryant

The best athletes in the world believe it.

“No time for losers - we are the champions.” - Queen
“If you ain’t first, you’re last.” - Ricky Bobby

Even pop culture beats it into us.

From the time you’re old enough to pick up a ball, the message is clear: winning is the goal and everything else is just part of the path to get there. For most of my life, I bought in completely.

Work hard? That’s how you win. Be a good teammate? That helps you win. Learn life lessons? Sure - but really, it’s about learning how to win. That mindset is hard to break, and for a lot of people, if you do break it, the assumption is simple - you just don’t know how to win.

But the older I get, the more I find myself drifting away from the Ricky Bobby approach and keep coming back to something Tony Vitello said a couple years ago. In the middle of a postseason run - when his team’s season was hanging in the balance - he went on a seven-minute rant about one word: success.

Not winning! (Charlie Sheen even tried to trademark the word - man, we really want to win).

Tony V, just a couple of weeks before the Vols literally did win it all, only wanted to talk about defining success.

He urged his players define success for themselves, how nobody outside that locker room gets to decide what it looks like, and how it’s about being great teammates, showing up every day and giving everything you’ve got - even if it doesn’t end in a win. “You get to pick what success is.” That stuck with me, because he never once mentioned winning.

And I’ve thought about that a lot this week.

Warren County’s baseball season ended Monday night with a 2-1 walk-off loss at Coffee County. In one afternoon, all the hard work - all the success they achieved - was boiled down to not being able to get over the hump in district play.

So what does that make them? If you follow the way we talk about sports now, the answer is pretty harsh: they were 0-1 when it mattered.

And that’s where I start to have a problem because that same team went 21-9 in the regular season. They won roughly 70 percent of their games and stacked wins for two and a half months.

But did it matter? That’s the question I kept asking myself after the game - and it’s something I’ve been wrestling with more and more, especially now that I’ve coached, covered and talked about sports for over a decade.

We say it all the time: everything’s preseason until the postseason. But think about what that actually means - 30 games reduced to one. The baseball team wins 21 games - but loses one - and suddenly the conversation becomes “they couldn’t get it done when it mattered.”

And I get it. District games matter more. Postseason matters the most - that’s how we crown champions. That’s not changing. But why do we act like it’s the only thing that matters? Why does two weeks in May outweigh two months in March and April?

Because that’s how we’ve always done it. That’s the answer. And maybe that’s enough, but it still doesn’t sit right.

Because if that’s the case, then what are we really valuing - consistency or timing? There’s a world where a team could go 3-27, but if those three wins are in the postseason, they're suddenly be celebrated more than a team that went 21-9. I’m not sure that makes sense.

I don’t think coach Philip King is going to remember this team as “0-1,” and I don’t think the seniors will either. They’ll remember the wins, the streaks, the moments and the feeling of being part of something that worked for a long time. Will they wish they had that one game back? Absolutely. But that doesn’t erase everything else. It just doesn’t.

And maybe this is where I’ve changed the most. I still believe winning matters. I just don’t believe it’s the only thing that matters.

Because if it is… then what did the other 30 games mean?