By Matthew Wadler:
I am not a big fan of the New England Patriots football team. As the internet has very clearly shown, not everyone likes the Falcons, but everyone can agree on hating the Patriots. I have to admit, though—Super Bowl LI was simply an amazing game.
I found it interesting hearing the commentators bringing up some of the statistics regarding previous games. For example, the odds of a Super Bowl going into sudden death was virtually nil, as it had never happened before. Same thing goes for the Patriots coming back from such an enormous deficit. No team in Super Bowl history had ever been able to stage such a comeback.
I guess the commentators forgot to tell Tom Brady about those statistics.
Being that Brady has been around a while and is decently successful (in my book, Joe Montana still reigns king), it is likely that he walked out onto the field after half time knowing full well that he was supposed to lose. So, what happened then? Why did the Patriots not just simply collapse on themselves? We’ll get back to that question momentarily.
Let’s look at the name—the Patriots—and what it actually means. The root word, pater, is one who is paternal or fatherly. A patriot, therefore, is one who has a paternal love for their country. They will protect and defend her no matter the cost. Think about that. What a truly American idea. Historically, our patriots were men of great intellect, wisdom, and cunning. They had to be in order to survive the early days of our nation. They had to have an intuitive understanding of the world around them and be able to adapt to it, no matter what was thrown at them. More than anything else, they had to be survivors in the most absolute sense. Survivors do not just make it through an adverse situation; they flourish in it. Survivors are those individuals who seek out adversity just to prove their mettle.
I would like to leverage a correlation between the Super Bowl and our presidential election season. Just like the Patriots coming out after half time, Trump, too, had already lost the election before the voting even began. One can easily validate this simply by looking back at the election news coverage. Minus a few (and I mean VERY few) political pundits, no one was actually giving the Trump team any chance at winning, and why should they have? At no point in our country’s history have we ever had a businessman win the office of President. More to point, we have never had a non-government employee win the presidency. That is not the only reason, of course. Let’s face it—Trump’s greatest strength is also his greatest weakness.
His lack of political prowess leads him to speak his mind, often before he thinks about the ramifications of what he is saying. While many among us love the honesty and directness, it often makes him appear petty. With so much going against him, it was unlikely that he would even come close to winning. Even the overwhelming majority of the polling showed that Trump was going to be defeated in a historic way. So, on the evening of November 8, 2016, Donald Trump and his team were running around telling his supporters to get out and vote as if they were losing the election— for all intents and purposes, it appeared that they would.
In both the case of the Super Bowl and the election, you had a person leading the organization who simply did not believe in losing. Whether you love or hate the Patriots, one cannot deny the fact that they are true competitors. The same thing can be said of Trump. Neither of them understand the concept of giving up. It doesn’t matter if you are three touchdowns behind at the half or losing in the polls on election night. The game isn’t over.
That is really the driving point for men like these, isn’t it? The game is never over—not for true winners. For those who are truly driven, the game doesn’t end until they quit. It doesn’t matter if they have won or lost. The polls can be closed and the fans back at home in bed. For those who epitomize winning and what it means to lead, the game never really ends. I guarantee you that despite the victory, Brady is still thinking about the 82-yard pick-six that he threw to Atlanta’s Robert Alford.
I believe it to be important that we look at these two men in the perspective of American Exceptionalism. They are the type of Americans who make our enemies quiver in fear. General Patton recognized this very fact and put it quite simply in his speech to his troops on June 5, 1944, when he stated:
“When you, here, every one of you, were kids, you all admired the champion marble player, the fastest runner, the toughest boxer, the big league ball players, and the All-American football players. Americans love a winner. Americans will not tolerate a loser. Americans despise cowards. Americans play to win all of the time. I wouldn’t give a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed. That’s why Americans have never lost nor will ever lose a war; for the very idea of losing is hateful to an American.”
Think of those words, “Americans play to win all of the time.” That was true, once upon a time. A time before participation awards. A time before we told everyone that they were a winner out of fear of hurting their feelings. A time before everyone was exceptional.
We Americans are not so different from kids in school with a great teacher. Great teachers mandate excellence from the class and do not accept excuses. They push their students and make them adhere to the rules they lay out. In class, they exude discipline and an understanding that actions have consequences. Teachers are demanding, and when the students fall short, may be harsh with rebukes. Yet this is the type of teacher that children love and remember fondly. Kids, while they cannot recognize it, want to have discipline in their lives. They want to know that when they have succeeded, it was because they did something well, not due to the fact that they simply showed up.
Likewise, Americans are drawn to desperate struggles where only the strong survive. We want to see the struggle on a very primitive level, where one has given everything they have, both mentally and physically. Vince Lombardi said it best in his famous quote:
“I firmly believe that any man’s finest hour, the greatest fulfillment of all that he holds dear, is that moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle—victorious.”
It is these moments where we, as Americans, remember what it is that made us who we are.
There are those who believe that America has no culture; that we are a melting pot of all cultures, and that it is from this diversity that we draw our strength. I could not disagree more. I believe that there is in fact a culture that is uniquely American. It is the drive that pushes us forward to greatness. It is the reason we watch the Super Bowl and root so vehemently for the team that may be behind at the half, but comes out with a fire in their heart at the start of the next quarter, completely undaunted by the odds. It is this fire that defines us as a nation. We may not always show it, but it is there, waiting for the moment when we are called to greatness.
Matthew Wadler is a Senior OpsLens Contributor and U.S. Army veteran. Matt served in the Army for 20 years as both enlisted and officer before retiring. His service includes time as Military Police, Field Artillery, Adjutant General, and Recruiting. His deployments include Somalia and two tours to Afghanistan. His formal education includes a master’s degree in HR Management. He is a strong supporter of the constitution and advocate for the military and veteran communities. Follow Matthew on Twitter @MatthewWadler.
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