When I was in high school, we would get bored during our free periods and would play games. The school wouldn’t let us in the gym to shoot baskets. We could throw the football, but why would you want to do that if you were going to football practice that night and beating the snot out of each other.

For a while we played wall-ball. We’d get a racquetball and find different walls throughout the school to play. It became quite serious. Everyone seemed to have a racquetball on them. If we were walking down the hall and a wall was vacant, that was our court.

Obviously, we would get kicked out, get in trouble, or whatever and there were only a few walls to use outside that were any good. Eventually our passions turned to 4-Square on the blacktop.

We had this huge blacktop with a bunch of 4-Squares on them. I guess we played 4-Square when we were little, but now we were high school juniors and seniors playing. As soon as the free period started, we’d run out to the blacktop and fight for the lead square, then start playing.

The way we played 4-Square was like this. There was a square divided into 4 boxes. One person was in each box and they were labeled 1, 2, 3, 4. The person in box 1 had the racquetball and would serve. If the ball bounced in your square then out of bounds before you hit it or bounced twice in your square, you were out. You had to go to box 4 and everyone moved up to the next number.

Now if you had several different squares, then you had a big game of 4-Square. And you were trying to get to the main square. So if you were several squares back, it would take you awhile to get to that lead square.

There were alliances formed and people you would gang up on to make sure they didn’t advance too far. We were so into this, we’d kick little kids off the squares to play. Yes, we were awesome role models at 18.

The competitiveness would be oozing from everybody. If you got someone out, you’d run right up to him and scream and yell in his face. You’d taunt him and tell him “see ya” as he went back to the last square.

Obviously, one could be a good sport for only so long.

I was one whose competitiveness got the best of me. I really don’t know how long I had been playing this particular game, but I had made it to the lead square. They tried to get me out a couple times, but I thwarted their efforts. Eventually, they got me out and that’s when it began.

The laughing, the taunting, the “you suck Kessler” (yes we were just playing 4-Square). They told me to get the racquetball that they smashed into my square and it bounced like 20 yards away. I slowly walked over to the ball and as they continued to make fun of me and I lost it. I grabbed the ball, looked at them, and then turned and chucked it onto the tennis courts which were fenced in and locked at the time.

I walked back to them as they were going, “Kessler what the heck??!!” I continued to walk right past them into the building. Not one of my finer moments for my competitiveness, but funny 25 years later.

Why is it that competitiveness overtakes us for stupid things such as 4-Square? We praise our athletes who compete in their sports. We want to develop that so they can grow not only as an athlete, but help them in life beyond sports. Do we know how to tone that down for things that really don’t matter?

That amount of times I’ve seen people fight during pickup games or stupid intramural games that mean nothing is unreal.

I’ve learned to control my competitiveness. In fact, it has gone the other way. I don’t know if I can turn it on. I play in a racquetball league and one time my opponent twisted his ankle and was hobbling all over the court. The dude still beat me.

I either am not as good a racquetball player as I think I am or I can’t find that “step on his throat” switch anymore.

I shared my 4-Square story to illustrate the idiocy of my own competitiveness. I do believe a healthy dose of competitiveness is not a bad thing. But, I certainly don’t want to witness my child doing something similar to what I did on the playing field.

Teach the kids to be competitive, but not act like Kessler losing at 4-Square. That strong competitiveness will serve you well in sports and beyond. If you are a salesman, what will it take to get that next sale? Can you make that quota? If you started your own business, do you have competitors and can you beat them?

Learn the healthy way to handle your competitiveness at a young age and it may be the best thing you can do for your child as he/she goes through life.

Photo courtesy of Becaro on Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/becaro/