You have to figure out, after a tough loss, how you are going to handle it. It has to hurt, but it is probably better if you don’t let it show and, instead, heed these lines from Yeats:
But these don’t appear to be good days for stoicism in the face of defeat. People in the spotlight are having a hard time facing the fact that they couldn’t get it done. There just doesn’t seem to be any such thing as an honorable loss.
Last Saturday, Ohio State and Michigan played football. The game was, as they say, “eagerly anticipated,” and the television ratings were, to use a word currently in vogue, “huge.” And it turned out to be a good game. The teams played hard but they also made mistakes. As did the officials. Which provoked the wrath of Jim Harbaugh, who coaches the Michigan team and is paid some $9 million a year for his labors. He takes the job seriously and the losses painfully. He has a volcanic temper.
At one point in the game, Harbaugh thought his team had been victimized by the officials. He yanked a headset off and slammed it on the ground hard enough to break it. He also said words that were provocative enough and loud enough to draw an “unsportsmanlike conduct” penalty from the officials. It was a 15-yard gift that helped Ohio State on its way to a touchdown.
With the two teams tied at the end of regulation, the game went into overtime. Both teams scored touchdowns in their first possessions and the game went to a second overtime period. In this one, after Michigan had kicked a field goal, Ohio State faced a fourth down and short. A field goal would tie the game and send it to another overtime period. A first down would keep the drive going and Ohio State could still win the game with a touchdown. But if Ohio State did not pick up the first down, the game would be over and they would lose it.
The Ohio State quarterback, J. T. Barrett, ran for the first down and it was exceedingly close. So close that the officials spent several minutes reviewing the initial call, which had been that Barrett made barely enough ground. It was impossible to know, watching on television, if Barrett had actually gained enough. But after the reviews, the original ruling was upheld, and Ohio State went on to win on a touchdown run by Barrett.
At the postgame press conference, Harbaugh came out smoking. He shouldn’t have been called unsportsmanlike, he said, still fuming. His players got flagged for infractions that were overlooked when committed by Ohio State players. And then there was that call on the fourth-down run in the second overtime. As he saw it, Harbaugh said, Ohio State was short by “this much,” spreading his hands by half-a-foot or so.
It is hard to imagine what Harbaugh intended to accomplish by this petulant exhibition. The game was over and the final score was in the books. Michigan wasn’t going to get the win on appeal. Ohio State officials and fans weren’t likely to agree that Michigan had been hosed and say, “How about a do-over?”
Harbaugh, of course, knew this. He probably also knew that his complaining actually took something off what was the dignity of a tough, close loss. He and his players came up short, though not by much, and there is no shame in this. But he seemed to believe it was insupportable. The fix had to be in. The thing was rigged. They’d been had.
In this, Harbaugh was operating in perfect harmony with the spirit of the times. Before the election, Donald Trump had hinted that he would not accept the results if he were defeated. The plain implication was that he believed there was no way he could lose unless the election were rigged. This assertion was greeted with predictable and justifiable outrage from the expected quarters. Talk like this was damaging to the trust and respect upon which our democracy depends and so forth.
So, Donald Trump won the election, and now, there is talk of recounts. These would take place in three states, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. These recounts began as the project of minor-party candidate Jill Stein, but the Clinton campaign soon signed on, though its leaders said they were not especially confident the results would go their way. Still, the recount cause would require cash, and it may be that when there is an opportunity to do a little political fundraising, the Clinton operation can’t bear to stay on the sidelines. Raising money is what they do best.
The recount effort, meanwhile, provoked one of those intemperate tweets from President-elect Trump, who weighed in with this:
Well . . . there is, of course, no proof of this. You could believe it in the same way that you could believe Michigan was hosed by the officials. Perhaps it does make the Clinton people feel better, temporarily, to force recounts in Ohio, Michigan, and, especially, Wisconsin, where they couldn’t be bothered to campaign because they thought the state was in the bag for them. So the recount is, after a fashion, a second insult. We didn’t care enough to come to your state to campaign and now we don’t trust you enough to believe you counted the votes accurately.
This, in a way, replicates that Harbaugh performance. In his view, the other team got a six-inch gift from the officials and that cost Michigan the game. No mention of the two critical interceptions and the fumble committed by his quarterback or, especially, of the 15 yards awarded to Ohio State because the Michigan coach couldn’t keep a cork in it.
Or, in modern parlance, “You lost. Get over it.”
Geoffrey Norman, a writer in Vermont, is a frequent contributor to The Weekly Standard.
