The video of winning Michigan coach Juwan Howard consoling Tennessee freshman Kennedy Chandler after a hard fought game that Tennessee lost moved me deeply. It was as powerful and poignant a scene as we’ll ever see. And not just in this edition of the NCAA Tournament.
This moment in sport also says volumes about the state of politics in these here United States. The parallels between politics and sport are hard to ignore.
Howard embracing Chandler drove home how sport teaches you both how to win and how to lose.
Anyone who's ever played knows no one wins them all. If you play sport long enough, you'll find yourself on both losing and winning teams; sometimes because of you, sometimes in spite of you.
If you've ever lost, you know how it feels and no real winner rubs it in the face of the team they just beat. There's never finger pointing in the line when the two teams congratulate each other at the end of a hard fought game.
Winners know how lucky they are to be there and revel in the moment, as well they should. Losers use the moment as motivation, to train harder so it doesn't happen again.
Where else in life do you learn these kinds of lessons in such sharply defined, black and white terms?
The other thing about sport is they keep score! :-)
There is no dispute who won and who lost at the end of a game. If in doubt, look up at the scoreboard. Numbers don't lie.
Bitch and moan, long and loud enough about the outcome when you lose and be branded a "sore loser", an indisputable badge of shame in the world of sport.
Tragically for the state of our union, this is a lesson lost in modern day American politics.