Bo's Competitiveness

Competitiveness is very prevalent in our socioeconomic culture. In fact, competition relates to too many of our day-to-day living activities, especially with our interactions with others. This post addresses aspects of the competitiveness of the legendary Bo Schembechler.

With Bo, as a result of his competitive tendencies, he compared himself against all others, regardless of the circumstances. He simply wanted to be ahead, on top or dominant against all others. It didn’t matter as he competed against his two older sisters for the single family bicycle or making that tackle and not letting go of the ball carrier, even though he was dragged, cut and bruised along the way. Secondly, he not only wanted to achieve more than anyone else, or to have greater success, but he also wanted to be exceptional. It just wasn’t enough for him, to be a major-league ball player, he wanted to be the superstar and pitch in game seven, the most important game, of the World Series. This was certainly a fantasy of grandiose proportion. More than likely, he wasn’t able to acknowledge or place any major emphasis on the significance of such an unrealistic fantasy. He was psychologically limited and not insightful in regards to his own underlying dynamics.

Bo wanted to be the best in every possible way and play college football for the Irish, which, at the time, was Notre Dame. Further, with major ambition and competitiveness tendencies, he was greatly sensitive to any barrier or frustration that interfered with his achieving success. Successes, for him, was only winning, while failure or fear of failure was experienced as a humiliation and being perceived as a loser. Also, closely found within a competitive and power controlling attitude was hostility since his emphasis or myopic focus was on victory. That meant defeating and dominating any and all opponents regardless of the situation. Unfortunately, on the playing field, his destructive emotional being tendencies seemed stronger than his constructive emotional being tendencies.  It was more important for Bo to see others defeated and to avoid, perceived failure than to succeed himself. Looking or viewing Bo’s body language from the sidelines was testimony. He didn’t appear to be enjoying himself while on the side lines in the heat of battle. He was limited and unable to complement his players, in games, even though they made spectacular plays.

To Be Continued