Winning Vs Losing

This is something that kinda sparked something inside of me. Last weekend after my softball game we had a team dinner and a bunch of the senior players on the team and leaders had a mini meeting ish and one thing someone said really hit a nerve with me. We had 2 games left and both are supposedly really good teams. It's a lot of back story where you kinda have to understand the game and rules in order to understand the story. But anyways, Usually we have 4 or more girls on our team, the minimum is 4...but there\s an exception for 3...so we're only gonna have 3 girls for our last 2 games so there was gonna be a lot of changes to offensive and defensive lineups and we were debating perhaps using one game to give more playing time to our inexperienced players. One guy said, I think we should just put all inexperienced players in this one game because personally I don't think we can win anyways...that just really hit me hard and it really annoyed me. I know that winning shouldn't be the sole objective in this league and in anything because it honestly can corrupt a person and make them just really bitter and nasty. But it's like...well if you think we're gonna lost, why play at all...why don't we just forfeit you know. It brought me to the examples about everything in life...if you think you're gonna fail a test, you're gonna fail...you need to have faith in yourself. If you think you're gonna fail...you've pretty much already failed, why even waste your time taking the test. It reminded me of when me and this one friend like a year or two ago used play NBA 2k a lot and this example may not make sense to a lot of you, but I was really good in the game and we were both really competitive but he wasn't that good. So I would always win...we would spend like hours each day playing game after game and I would always win. To the point where he's like let\s not play anymore...or I'm not coming over anymore cuz I just lose anyways or he would goof around and not try cuz he's like well I'm not gonna win anytways. That really ticked me off cuz it's like what the heck...do you have that little faith in yourself. With that mentality, no wonder you never beat me and you probably never will if you keep thinking like that. I'm like yeah we play to have fun, but it's not fun when you don't try and goof off...like why come over if you're gonna be all sour and down just cuz you lose. Back to present day...in sports...why play if you think you're gonna lose, don't waste time, that comment really irked me cuz I'm just a really competitive person in general...so it's like why would you say that...if the rest of the team heard you say that, and heard you say you pretty much don't believe in them, think about their morale. Even if it's the worst team in the league going up against the best hypothetically...the coach isn't gonna be like OKAY GUYS....so we're gonna lose anyways...but just have fun and do your best. No...he's gonna be like..you guys are just as good as them, I believe in you, I believe you can win this game...that should be the mentality. That's not even obsessing over winning and putting it first priority, it's believing in yoruself and believing in your team...that you guys are good and can play and can win.