After Colfax-Mingo’s Dakota Hostetter finished her third state cross country meet this weekend, the junior told me she felt like not walking away with an all-state medal meant she was a failure.
She admitted to not enjoying the pressure of being a ranked runner. She doesn’t think she performs well under pressure.
But there’s one thing that Hostetter is not — that’s a failure.
Anyone who has run in three straight state cross country meets in three years of high school is not a failure.
Anyone who finishes in the top 25 in each race also isn’t a failure.
Hostetter also played on the volleyball team. Just playing two sports in the same season and being a part of postseason success in both means you’re an absolute winner.
One day, Hostetter will look back on what she did in high school and not think of herself as a failure.
There are teams who weren’t failures this fall, too.
The Prairie City-Monroe football team wasn’t a failure when it lost to Mid-Prairie in the opening round of the playoffs. The Mustangs still went 7-2 during the regular season. Sometimes you just don’t play your best.
Collins-Maxwell/Baxter’s football team had lots of adversity this year. Not much went right, but the Raiders made the playoffs despite all the hardship. No failure there either.
Colfax-Mingo’s volleyball team, which included Hostetter, won a playoff game and then lost to the ninth-ranked team in the state. Sometimes the better teams just win. Not a failure.
CMB’s volleyball team had similar misfortune with injuries as the football team did. The Raiders lost a top hitter early in the year, another top hitter near the end of the season and didn’t have its libero for the postseason. So their loss to North Polk wasn’t a failure either.
The area cross country teams all had at least one state qualifier represent their school. That’s not failure.
PCM has reached the regional final in volleyball. No matter what happens against heavily-favored Nevada on Tuesday, the Mustangs are not failures. They have a strong core of young talent with a first-year coach. The only way is up for them.
Colfax-Mingo and Lynnville-Sully both won playoff games on the gridiron. No matter the outcome of Monday’s second-round games, neither will go down as failures this season.
Failure is such a harsh word.
I remember telling my wife a few weeks ago I like it when our daughter gets emotional when she fails.
I don’t like seeing her fail, but I love it that she hates to fail.
A famous Michael Jordan quote reads “I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”
You can’t succeed until you fail. Remember that.
Contact Troy Hyde at
641-792-3121 ext. 6536 or thyde@newtondailynews.com