People often say that it’s not about if you win or lose, but how you play the game. For some Sandpoint High students, whether the team wins or loses does not matter.

Junior Hunter Donahoe is a two-sport athlete at Sandpoint High School. Donahoe plays football and baseball and has previously wrestled. Donahoe does not think winning is particularly important in comparison to how one plays the game.

“[Winning] is not very important,” Donahoe said.  “If you go 100 percent and you still lose, then there’s nothing you can do about it. I actually hate the game of football. There isn’t anything I benefit from the game other than being in shape.”

There are many outside forces of motivation other than winning such as: playing for one’s teammates, self motivation of trying your best, or just having fun playing the sport.

For Donahoe, what keeps him playing are another player’s father who has pushed him since his eighth grade year to play football and has kept him going since then, and a certain teammate who has motivated him to stay around.

“If it wasn’t for Tyrone Larson I would have tried to quit a long time ago,” Donahoe said, “Every time I think about quitting I always remember him telling me that I can’t quit. [Tyrone] is the only player that has kept me on the field.”

A recent article by The Guardian stated that 64% of Britain’s schoolchildren do not care if they win or lose in sports and activities. Without the burden of fear of failure these kids are free to play for fun, and are able to grow without expectations of success.

Sports psychologist Steve Bull stated that the more effective way of achieving success is to focus on the ‘process’ of winning during the performance.

“I don’t think winning in sports is very important, I think the will to prepare to win is where it’s at,” Football coach Satini Puailoa said. “If you have the will to prepare to win, then that takes care of everything.”

Puailoa led the Sandpoint football team to their only state championship in 1997 and has been the face of Sandpoint football for over a decade.

“To me, competitive athletics is about learning to put your heart and soul in an endeavor with a group of other people,” Puailoa said. “And when you do that, you care about the outcome a lot more.”

The idea of not caring about winning could be foreign to other competitive high school athletes who play to win. Two-sport athlete and two year varsity volleyball player, Kaitlan Ward plays to win and only to win.

“Winning is the reason I play sports. When you win it is the best feeling ever,” Ward said. “I’ve played with people that play because their parents are making them, or because their friends are playing, and with that they don’t care if they win or lose.  I believe they are inconsistent teammates.”

Although some players, like Donahoe, do not particularly care if the team wins or loses, that doesn’t mean that they don’t believe that the team can’t be successful playing together.

“As long as every player leaves everything they have on the field, then that’s all I could ask for.”