Tom Brady's Bad Lesson

Mona Charen on Feb 14, 2025

The Eagles victory was greeted joyously in our family. It's always a high when you (or your team) come out on top. But in the final minutes of the Super Bowl, as the clock remained stuck on the two-minute warning for what felt like 20 minutes (at least for those of us eager to pop the Champagne), former quarterback-turned-TV-commentator Tom Brady filled the air time with lugubrious thoughts about how awful it is to be the loser. "The reality of a loss in this game," he opined, "is you don't ever get over them," adding that he thinks about his losses more than his wins.

Whoa. Whatever happened to "You win some, you lose some. What matters is how you play the game"? That may be a tough attitude to adopt in the first minutes or hours after a crushing disappointment, but time heals that initial hurt, and a philosophical acceptance of inevitable ups and downs eventually prevails for emotionally healthy people.

I don't presume to judge Brady's inner life, but love him or hate him, he's a legend, with no fewer than seven Lombardi trophies on his mantle -- the most of any player in the history of the NFL. Surely all of those wins should soften the disappointment of his three losses? And if the wins don't salve the disappointment, what about the handsome check? Each player on the winning team gets a bonus of $171,000, but the losers are not forgotten. Each player on the losing side gets $96,000. That's on top of the average NFL salary of $3.2 million. People who lose out on a job promotion or Pulitzer Prize don't get a consolation check.

Instead of focusing on the "agony of defeat," Brady could have pointed to the handshakes and pats on shoulders that Kansas City Chiefs players were offering to the Eagles. That's sportsmanship. That's how grown-ups respond to loss. As someone once said, "Greet victory like a gentleman and defeat like a man." (I know the saying leaves out women, but the same principle applies.)

The game was also quite clean -- no epithets or thrown elbows as far as I could see -- and that too should be noticed and praised. Frankly, it's an accomplishment for men engaged in a game that consists of barely disguised physical combat to keep their tempers.

Consider how many kids were watching the game. Do we want to convey the message that losing a game -- even an extravaganza game -- is something you can never get over? What does that tell kids about other setbacks they will inevitably encounter in life?

When my kids were teenagers, we sent them to a music camp called Interlochen. A music teacher warned us that the camp was based on a "competitive model" -- that is, kids had to audition every week for the band or orchestra they were in and could be moved up or down depending upon their performance. We were fine with that. Would it hurt to be relegated from second chair to third? Sure. But the lesson the kids (all of whom had gotten into the camp by showing ability) would learn was that even if they failed to perform well one week, the sun would continue to shine the next day, their friends would remain their friends and they could use what they learned from the ranking to make decisions. Maybe they'd practice more and strive to improve if the sting of being demoted was too painful. Maybe they'd decide it really wasn't their calling anyway. And almost certainly it would instill respect for those whose talent or diligence exceeded their own. Those are good lessons.

Another mom I knew said the National Spelling Bee served a similar function. Every one of the kids who participated has won all kinds of local and regional contests. They'd always been the winners. And then they got to the top tournament that yields only one champion. It's nice for that kid to grab the brass ring. But maybe the outcome is even better for the rest, who will learn the invaluable lesson that losing is tough, but it isn't the end of the world.

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Mona Charen is policy editor of The Bulwark and host of the "Beg to Differ" podcast. Her new book, "Hard Right: The GOP's Drift Toward Extremism," is available now.