By Eric Ralph

Andy Murray lost the Wimbledon Final to Roger Federer on July 8, 2012. However, he received more applause than the champion.

In front of the crowd in London, Murray, born in Glasgow, held back tears as he attempted to speak. I couldn’t, and eventually nor could he. I cried with him. You could feel it – the man really, really, wanted to win. In front of his home crowd, Murray gracefully praised Federer, thanked his family, and told the crowd how much they meant to him. The painful realness forced me to accept something we don’t often hear: that losing is a part of the game.

From George Steinbrenner to Jim Irsay Jr., impatient owners demand winning. After LeBron James lost the 2011 NBA Finals, he was not just bashed for that specific performance, his whole career was labeled before it was over. Even the rapper Game had the audacity to proclaim, “You (explitive) will never get a ring, LeBron James.”

Now, it’s 2012, and Game is already wrong: James and the Miami Heat won the 2012 NBA Finals.

This is becoming a trend in the “head-down” generation, where everyone has their head down looking at their iPhone. Some call it the “information age”. Point is, you can access information instantly. We don’t know what to do with short-term results. Because we want to do something with this data, we have to talk about it. All week ESPN essentially rehashes the same headlines until one plot finally unfolds. Can’t we just wait and watch the game?

The ebb and flow of a sports career takes on many twists and turns. The path of a franchise to a championship is the same. Until there are zero’s on the clock, the game is still being played. James now looks like a lock for multiple titles, when only a year ago he was cast aside. That’s why comparing people, writing The Book of Basketball as a list, and ranking everything is ruining the reason the participants play in the first place: to let go and have fun. Sports evolve at a pace too fast to constantly put everything into perspective. Just enjoy the game.

My favorite players aren’t robots, they’re human. Andy Murray reminded me that sometimes, even when you try your best, you don’t win. But you’ve still got your friends and family who love you. And that is life, not always winning.

Murray’s moment was bigger than Federer’s, even in defeat, because it was so real.

via I Wept with Andy Murray – Yahoo! Voices – voices.yahoo.com.