Defeat

Women’s tennis star Madison Keys had been around the sport for a decade and a half, a much-admired player with sizable talent, but…never…quite…breaking through on one of tennis’s signature stages. Until she finally won the Australian Open in March of 2025.

Before Australia, Keys reached only one major final, the U.S. Open in 2017. That had been a cruelly brief day, as she fell 6-3, 6-0. As she reached her late 20s, the notion of not living up to expectations gnawed at her.

“It started becoming this internal build up…is it ever going to happen?” Keys recalled. “It was getting to the point where I was fairly unhappy with myself, and not just on a tennis court. It was starting to bleed into my life.”
“I was supposed to be great, but I’m not,” Keys remembered thinking.
Finally, she confronted the isolating pressures of her sport. Self-worth had become tied to results, or the lack thereof.

“It was one of those things where you say it out loud, pause, and you’re like, “Wow, that’s a lot to carry around,” she said.

Keys made a critical choice: She would stop defining herself by wins and losses. She was an elite athlete with plenty to be thankful for. The realization was liberating. “You can finally get to the point of letting some things go,” she said.

It’s been a rocky couple of seasons at the ballpark for Yeshiva University in New York City. More than a couple of seasons, actually. Until early evening on April 8, the Division III Y.U. Maccabees hadn’t won a game since Feb. 27, 2022. Now it was April 2025.

Instead they’d lost in every imaginable way—home games, road games, close games, blowouts, double-header sweeps, games they deserved to win and games they didn’t. The losses climbed into the low double-digits, then the mid-double digits, and finally, this season, into the thin air of the 90s.

Entering the front half of Tuesday’s double-header with Lehman College, Yeshiva had lost 99 in a row. Then they lost that game, too, making it triple digits.

Yeshiva had at 100 losses in a row—by far the longest active losing streak across college baseball. But nobody beats Yeshiva University baseball 101 times in a row. On April 9th, 2025, the magic Maccabees were triumphant in the back half of their double-header with Lehman, jumping out to an early 7-2 lead before prevailing 9-5.

When the No. 1 seed Alabama men’s basketball team suffered an upset loss in the Sweet 16 in 2023, coach Nate Oats sought out advice from one of the greatest coaches of all time—Alabama’s football coach, Nick Saban.

It will come as no surprise to learn that Nick Saban, the seven-time title-winning football coach, had some wisdom to offer his colleague. Saban emphasized the importance of not dwelling on the opportunity the team had just lost, but focusing on the next opportunity to come.

Saban’s approach paid off. Despite losing more games and earning a lower March Madness seed than it did the year before, the 2024 Alabama basketball team reached the first Final Four in the program’s 111-year history.

“It’s a great philosophy in life,” Oats said this week. “There’s a lot of adversity you hit … You live in the past; you’re not going to be very good in the present.”

That’s where Saban came in. One of the greatest winners in the history of college sports, Saban also happens to know plenty about losing. As Oats pointed out, most of Saban’s championships came during seasons marred by at least one crushing regular-season defeat.

It may be surprising that Saban was so willing to let Oats pick his brain. But as it turns out, it’s something the pair have been doing for years. After he was hired from Buffalo, Oats asked Saban if he could embed himself into Bama’s practice facilities to see how the best college football coach of all-time ran his program.

Oats said, “I went and watched practices. I sat in on staff meetings. I shadowed him for a day. I went on road trips with him to see how they operated. I tried to learn as much as I could.”

The Silver Bridge, officially named the Point Pleasant Bridge but known for its silver aluminum paint, opened on May 30, 1928, with great anticipation. Advertised as a groundbreaking cantilever design demanding “worldwide attention.” On its inaugural day, an estimated 10,000 people crossed the bridge, eager to be part of history.

But on December 15, 1967, the bridge collapsed. Eyewitnesses described the collapse as a slithering, buckling chain reaction, claiming dozens of cars and at least three trucks, resulting in the loss of 46 lives.

Unlike traditional suspension bridges like San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge, which use woven-wire cables, the Silver Bridge was suspended from heat-treated steel eyebar chains resembling elongated links of a bicycle chain. A Popular Mechanics article summarizes the design flaw and its consequences:

When National Transportation Safety Board investigators recovered the wreckage, much of what they found was covered in rust. But they homed in on one small piece where the rust ran much deeper, the metal far more corroded: a single eyebar had snapped in two. It was as though a crack had developed over time, a slow corrosive fissure. The initial crack was barely one-quarter-inch long. But once it formed, all it could do was grow. Investigators came to understand that this single, tiny flaw destroyed the entire bridge.

Possible Preaching Angle:

The same is true in the spiritual life of the Christian. One small flaw, a little yielding to temptation, over time can cause the downfall of a person or a ministry.

Despite the massive popularity of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit in the Lord of the Rings in book and film versions, over the years, the books have received biting criticism from critics.

One early reviewer dismissed it as “an allegorical adventure story for very leisured boys.” This critic sarcastically said that we should all take to the streets proclaiming “Adults of all ages! Unite against the infantalist invasion.”

Another critic declared it “juvenile trash.”

In 1961, a third critic called it “ill-written” and “childish” and declared, not a little prematurely that it had already “passed into a merciful oblivion.”

Twenty years later, another critic, was hopeful that Tolkien’s “cult status is diminishing.” This critic also argued that Tolkien’s popularity is due to class distinctions. The intelligent “bookish class” doesn’t read Lord of the Rings. Instead, only lower-class people read it—those “to whom a long read does not come altogether easily.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

People did not see the value of Jesus, but criticized and rejected him but God made him King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

Niccolò Machiavelli was a Renaissance era philosopher, politician, and writer. His writings greatly influenced modern political science. The following is an edited excerpt from The School of Life’s YouTube video on his views.

Machiavelli believed that to be effective, political leaders needed to be ruthless and tyrannical, not empathetic and just. His book, The Prince, is a short manual of advice for princes on how not to finish last. And the answer was never to be overly devoted to acting nicely. and to know how to borrow every single trick employed by the most dastardly, unscrupulous and nastiest people who have ever lived.

Machiavelli knew where our counter-productive obsession with acting nicely originated from: the West was brought up on the Christian story of Jesus of Nazareth. (He was) the very nice man from Galilee who always treated people well.

But Machiavelli pointed out an inconvenient detail to this sentimental tale of the triumph of goodness through meekness. From a practical perspective, Jesus’ life was an outright disaster. This gentle soul was trampled upon and humiliated, disregarded and mocked. Judged in his lifetime and outside of any divine assistance, he was one of history’s greatest losers.

Possible Preaching Angle:

What Machiavelli (and so many others) fail to take into account is that the gentle Lamb becomes a Lion. After the seeming “defeat” of the Cross, our resurrected Lord will return in great power and glory to reign over the earth. He was exalted by the Father because of his willingness to humble himself and take on the form of a servant.

Mistakes are easily made and it’s often too late to rectify the situation by the time someone notices. That was the case with Spain’s supposedly state-of-the-art submarine the S-81 Isaac Peral. The submarine was commissioned in 2013 as one of four new submarines for the Spanish Navy, but there’s just one problem with its modern design. Once it’s submerged the S-81 Isaac Peral may never be able to resurface again.

This is because a miraculously unnoticed flaw in its design means that the ship is around 75 to 100 tons overweight. Which means Spain essentially invested in a submarine which can only move in one direction--down. The mistake is said to be the result of a pesky decimal point placed in the wrong place during calculations. And it’s a single dot which can cost an extra $9.7 million per meter of the hull, which has to be extended to regain its balance.

Considering $680 million has already been invested in this single ship as part of a total $3 billion for all four subs, this is hardly a (mistake) which can be brushed under the rug. It took an additional seven years to repair and the submarine finally joined the Spanish fleet in May 2021.

You can view the clip here (8 min 52 sec – 10 min 03 sec).

In his book, Break Open the Sky, Steven Bauman writes:

Despite our near-phobic fear of failure, the facts suggest that it's actually a common, almost universal, experience:

• 75 percent of venture-capital-backed start-ups fail, and 95 percent do not meet the initial expectations.
• 40 percent of CEOs don't last eighteen months.
• 70 to 90 percent of mergers and acquisitions fail to add shareholder value.
• 81 percent of new hires don't work out.
• 99 percent of new patents never earn a penny.
• 95 percent of new products introduced in a given year fail.
• 68 percent of information technology projects fail to meet their goals.
• 88 percent of New Year's resolutions end in failure.
• 100 percent of all human bodies fail.

It seems Alexander Pope was right when he said, "Errare humanum est," (to err is human).

ESPN's documentary "The Four Falls of Buffalo" recounts the story of the Buffalo Bills four consecutive Super Bowl losses 1990-1993. Field goal kicker Scott Norwood would shoulder the greatest weight. During the 1990 Super Bowl (XXV) between The New York Giants and the Buffalo Bills, with 8 seconds left in the game, Norwood missed a 47-yard field goal. No one felt more pain than Norwood. Even 20 years after his failed attempt, here's how he described his feelings: "Sorrow, I guess, and disappointment in letting down the teammates that are there on the field of battle with you. I get choked up thinking about it, putting myself back in that situation."

But nothing prepared Scott Norwood for the greeting he would receive in Buffalo the next week. Nearly 30,000 screaming fans met Norwood and his teammates in Buffalo after the loss, many of them chanting and screaming, "WE WANT SCOTT!!...WE WANT SCOTT!!" Here's how Norwood described the scene:

We got back to town and I did not know what to expect. What I really wanted to do was just remain behind the scenes, but there was a chant that intensified … I was not expecting to be called to the front like that. I had to speak off the top of my mind and real quick. I think in a sense, that's when the truest feelings arise.

The documentary shows Scott with mic in hand telling the crowd, "I know that I have never felt more loved than I do right now." Expecting (and maybe even deserving) condemnation, Norwood found a small taste of amazing grace.

Editor's Note: In case you want some more info on Norwood, here's some more to the story: "In addition to the fans, Norwood's would find support from his team. Bruce DeHaven, the Bill's special teams coach, would later name his adopted son after Scott. Others rose to Norwood's defense, including running back Kenneth Davis, who claimed the ball was blown away by an apache helicopter hovering over the stadium at game time. Scott Norwood would return the following year to help win the AFC title against Denver after a successful 44 yard kick."

The NPR radio show "This American Life" featured a story about a French comedian named Gad Elmaleh, probably the most famous stand-up comedian in France. He performs in huge arenas and gets mobbed everywhere by fans and paparazzi. But about a year ago, Gad embarked on a strange quest. He decided to try making it as a comic in America in English. This is an incredibly difficult and totally unnecessary thing for anybody to try to do. In France, everybody knows Gad Elmaleh. It was going great for him, but instead he gave all that up to start again at the bottom, doing small clubs and venues. He had to reinvent how he does his whole job. And he was struggling, and sometimes his acts completely bombed.

So a reporter turned to four famous American comedians and asked them to watch a video of a 15-minute set Gad did at the Comedy Cellar. They all agreed he's a pro, but that he has a long way to go to make it in America. Could he be a great comedian in America? Here's how the reporter summarized his findings about Gad's chances for success in America:

The comedians I talked to were adamant. For Gad to come up with the kind of material he's going to need to be great in America—the personal stuff, the stuff he really cares about—the only way to develop that is to do painful sets on stage where he tries out all kinds of stuff and lets himself bomb. In France, he doesn't do that. And Gad told me it goes against all his instincts—against 22 years of training—but he's going to have to override that instinct. He's going to have to embrace bombing, learn to fail at comedy at a whole new level, if he's going to succeed here. It's a concept that's totally foreign to him.

Possible Preaching Angles: The advice to "fail at a whole new level" and to "embrace bombing" could apply to so many important areas of the Christian life—service, mission, ministry, preaching, volunteering, the use of spiritual gifts, etc.

With the Olympics winding down we remember and celebrate the winners—the gold and silver and (maybe) bronze medal winners. But, sadly, while we cheer winners, most of us don't know how to lose well. An NPR article takes a look at the negative effects of rooting for those who lose. For instance, the article notes, "The agony of defeat manifests in athletes' bodies as well—especially on their faces. Researchers have found that study participants only had to watch about four seconds of basketball or table tennis games to recognize—from the looks on the athletes' faces—who was winning and who was losing. The participants were also able to quickly surmise whether the game was close or a blowout."

Also, another study tracked the attitudes of high school students before and after big soccer matches against other countries. "When the German national team lost, the researchers found the high schoolers developed more negative views of people from the winning countries ... This study suggests that international sports competitions may not be a path to world harmony after all."

And a U.S. based study noted that when an NFL team loses that team's fans tend to binge on foods loaded with saturated fats. "The theory: After a crushing defeat, a losing fan finds comfort in comfort food."

Possible Preaching Angle:

So it's great to win, but life often has more losses. May the power of Christ liberate us to rejoice and thrive whether we win or lose!

Editor's Note: Tell this illustration as a story or as a prop illustration by using an actual bicycle or a bike tire.

On a recent bike trip it wasn't until I finally arrived home that I noticed something wrong. My tires were low. They needed air. The funny thing about bike tires is I don't remember taking air out of them. It just went. Somewhere. Somehow. Air leaks.

My tires weren't crazy low, but low enough to know that my efforts in peddling were not producing maximum return. Each rotation was just a little bit harder than it would be had the tires been filled properly.

It got me thinking. Life is like a bike tire. We don't intentionally take air out … it just leaves. And just as it's harder to peddle with flat tires, it's not as fun to live when the air has leaked out of our lives. We don't know where it goes or how. Life just has a way of deflating us. Difficult conversations … hisssssss (that's the sound of air leaving your tires!). Tough day at work … hisssssss. Overwhelmed by circumstance … hisssssss. It happens to all of us.

So where in my life am I being re-inflated? Where am I pausing long enough to "fill my tires"? I know for me it happens when I drive by myself, worship music cranked. Re-filling. It happens when I take my Bible and a journal to the beach and let God speak to me. Re-filling. It happens to me when the stories of God at work fill my spirit. Having a coffee with a wise and trusted friend.

What about you? Are you going through life with flat tires? How fun is that? How much effort are you putting out in relation to the return? What if you made a decision to pause and re-fill? Do you know your re-filling stations? How does God fill your tires and push you onward?

When asked by GQ magazine about the best advice he has to offer, actor Nick Nolte said,

This is going to sound strange, but my best advice is to accept losing. It's the grandest thing you can do. We as a culture think it's a terrible thing to lose, but it's only through losing that we grow. We don't grow by winning. … But our culture glorifies winning, so to accept losing is the opposite of everything we're taught.

Sometimes our greatest losses can become our most profound teachers. … I'm not saying you should strive to lose or that you have to lose all the time. It's great to win. But a fair amount of losing is what makes us progress as people. You learn acceptance and humility. You learn how to find happiness.

Chuck Colson said in a sermon:

The great paradox [of my life] is that every time I walk into a prison and see the faces of men or women who have been transformed by the power of the living God, I realize that the thing God has chosen to use in my life … is none of the successes, achievements, degrees, awards, honors, or cases I won before the Supreme Court. That's not what God's using in my life. What God is using in my life to touch the lives of literally thousands of other people is the fact that I was a convict and went to prison. That was my great defeat, the only thing in my life I didn't succeed in.