I Was Made to Redefine Competition

By Timothy Bieri

Women’s Basketball Coach, Assistant Athletic Director

At the end of a basketball game—any game, really—there is a winner and a loser. For all intents and purposes, the winners can walk away from the court believing that they’re good enough to move forward in the competition, able to dominate the other team, and worthy of being seen, noticed, and praised. But what does it really mean to win? Better yet, what does it mean to lose? What happens on the other side of that court for the team who walks away with a loss? If the winners can claim that they are enough, does that mean if I lose, I’m not enough? As a competitive basketball player, these questions came up often in my life, and they impacted my identity, my self-worth, and my faith. But it was even more challenging when those questions extended beyond the court and into my personal life. In the face of great loss, who was I going to be?

I have always been a competitor. Being the youngest of three boys, competition was the air I breathed. I was always striving to keep up with my older brothers’ accomplishments. My oldest brother was a great athlete; all the girls liked him and all the guys wanted to be him. My middle brother was academically accomplished; he was extremely disciplined, responsible, and well respected. Then there was me. I loved my brothers dearly, and I looked up to them in so many ways—they were my heroes, and, in many ways, they still are—but from an early age, I defined what it looked like to win by comparison. Their accomplishments became my standards, and a highly competitive spirit began to grow in me.

My competitive, winning-driven identity wasn’t imposed on me by my parents or even by my brothers, necessarily. It was all very internal.  I wanted to be a certain thing and achieve certain goals, and, as my life continued to move forward, I actually experienced a lot of success. In high school, I was efficient on the court, I got good grades, and things were, from all outside perspectives, really good. Like many young people, I was still learning about God, testing the bounds of our relationship, and seeking Him in different ways, but I was doing okay.

I went on to earn my undergraduate degree from Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado. Between my good grades and my many accolades for my skills as a basketball player, I was considered to be very accomplished. Winning became my identity, and I was on a trajectory of success that I intended to turn into a career as a professional athlete. I had conversations with God saying, "God, if you could help me get into the NBA or a top league in Europe, just imagine what I could do for you. If I'm doing well, then everyone around me will be able to do well."

When I was twenty-two years old and coming to the end of my college basketball career, which had been promising and successful all four years, I was being scouted by a European league. I had people’s attention. I had put in years of time and effort to prepare for this. Whether or not I could play basketball in this league was a professional and emotional tipping point for me. I was being evaluated on a life-changing scale, labeling me as “good enough” or “not good enough”. In the end, I wasn’t chosen. I didn’t qualify. The results were in: “Not good enough”. Suddenly, my entire vision of being a professional athlete was just gone. It wasn’t going to happen. My dream was stripped away, and my identity as a winner was crushed. It felt like losing a friend.

Suddenly, I was forced to ask, "Now what? Who am I? God, if you didn't make me to win, what did you make me for? Why did you give me this desire and drive for sports at all? What is my life about if I don't get to compete—if I’m not recognized for my talent? If you didn't make me to be a high-level athlete, then what did you make me for?” Those questions hit me hard. Right out of college, I was forced to figure out what was next for my career while also having to redefine what competition was, discover what my purpose was, and navigate the loss of my identity. I was deeply aware of how much losing affected my sense of self, but I was not prepared yet to walk away from the game. In hopes of staying connected to basketball, I began coaching instead of playing.

In spite of my somewhat lateral move into another accomplishment-based career, God used coaching to propel me forward in my relationship with Him. I got a job coaching women’s basketball at Multnomah University, and, during my time there, God began to challenge my entire philosophy of what made me me. I began to spend more time in the Word and having meaningful conversations with faculty, staff, and students about God, life, and faith. I started to see the athletes I was coaching as deeply loved, valued, and complicated children of God, not just pawns to help me win a game. The opposing teams’ players and coaches became people instead of enemies.  I realized what Scripture meant when it said that our battle is not against “flesh and blood” (Ephesians 6:12).

Slowly, “competition” took on a new meaning to me. I began to redefine it as “striving together” rather than “striving against.” I began to understand how a final score was simply a result and not a definition. Winning and losing loosened their tight grip on my sense of self. When my team lost a game, I could confidently tell my athletes that it didn’t define them. I knew that they were still lovable, valuable, complicated children of God, and I started to realize that the same might be true for me.

“The older I get and, honestly, the more I lose, the more I hear God telling me, "You are enough." I hear him saying, "I love you and I have a purpose for you.”

- Tim Bieri

In 2015, however, the lessons I was learning came to a head when my wife, Sara, and I experienced a deeper kind of loss than ever before. At the time, my wife was pregnant with a daughter, and from early in the pregnancy, the doctors said that the baby was not going to make it. There was too much wrong with her. Immediately, we felt like we had failed. We had lost in a profound way. But we were determined and convicted to wait on God and see what He would do. We decided that we were going to pray for a miracle, we were going to hope in the Lord, stay in the game, and do this thing together. And we did. For seven months, my wife carried our daughter, but the time came when, for Sara’s safety and for the safety of the baby, our daughter had to be delivered two months premature.

On January 22, 2015, our daughter was born, but after only five days of life, our girl passed away and went to be with Jesus. We experienced loss and grief on that day like we never had before, and we continue to experience it today. It put every loss that I had ever experienced into perspective. Losses on a court just do not compare when you think about life and death. The loss of our daughter forced me to ask an entirely different set of questions about my identity in light of the Gospel: What really matters for eternity? Who does God say I am? Why do I hate to lose?

I realized that lying beneath my competitive nature was fear. Whenever I lost, I was driven to a place of questioning my identity. Was I a winner or a loser? Those labels defined me. I didn’t want to be a loser. I didn't want to lose because it hurt. I was afraid of not being good enough; not being noticed; not being seen. Competition and athletics, even marriage and family, allowed me to be noticed by others. They allowed me to exert some sort of power and gain status, and the fear of losing that power and status became my motivation to win. I thought that once I had success in those areas, I would have made it in life. It was a dangerous fear that was full of pride. I had put myself in the place of God, relying on my own abilities to save me and make me acceptable. I had bought into the perception that is perpetuated by our society that winners have life all figured out and there is no hope for the people who struggle or lose.

But the Gospel says something different. The Gospel turns everything on its head. As we navigated our tragedy, and as I continued to study the Word and interact with other people who had deep and rich relationships with Christ, I learned that I was seen. I was known. I was a deeply loved, valued, and complicated child of God, and I didn't have to be afraid of failure. I didn't have to be afraid of not being good enough.

The older I get and, honestly, the more I lose, the more I hear God telling me, "You are enough." I hear him saying, "I love you and I have a purpose for you.” Through the contours of my life, God has shown me that He made me to lead and grow through loss; to redefine the competition. To some, that may seem like an undesirable calling, but not for me. Loss is hard, but the purpose, perspective, and growth that come from loss are too valuable to walk away from. In my experience, some of my most significant spiritual formation has happened when I leaned into the refining power of loss.

It wasn’t until my career as a basketball player ended that God clearly said, "I put athletics in your life for a purpose, not just for a moment. This is a skill, a passion, a talent that I have given you to reflect and point people back to me, and you will grow closer to me as you do it." It was through the loss of my daughter that I realized that all things in life—good things, bad things, our own lives, and even the lives of our loved one—come to an end. Faith, on the other hand, is eternal. God Himself is eternal, and the people that we become by knowing Him are eternal. And Jesus, on the cross, fought for the only result that truly matters: eternity together with God. Now, every other result, win or lose, is not so heavy, because Jesus already won. His victory takes all the pressure off. He is the reason I am able to remain hopeful in a time of great loss. Because of Him, I know I will be okay.

In that truth, I experienced freedom. My fear was transformed into growth through testing. It's not about the scoreboard anymore. I’m no longer worried about the result, the paycheck, the number of people who like me, the number of smiles that I get, or how many wins my team has. My internal dialog has changed from asking if I am a winner or loser to asking if I am growing in understanding, wisdom, humility, and love. I have taken my eyes off of the scoreboard and fixed them on eternity and the people around me instead. Now, every loss is just something that points me back to my knees in prayer and further into relationship with Jesus and with others.

 I still don't like losing. I don't think anybody likes to experience loss. It’s tough when you work really hard, spend a lot of time, energy, and emotion on one thing, and it doesn’t pay off with a win. It can be even tougher when the loss is completely out of your control. But there is something to be said about those who learn to handle loss well. That kind of confidence and ability to go through hard things and come out on the other side stronger and better is incredibly powerful. It can be a supernatural thing to watch someone experience loss when they know that they will be okay. 

I’m a coach; I have dozens of athletes who look to me for direction. I’m also a father with four beautiful boys whom I am responsible to raise. I get to talk to my team and to my children every day, and I have watched them ask the same questions that I once asked: “What is my identity?” “Am I a winner, or am I a loser?” As a coach, of course, I encourage my team toward excellence in our sport and I want my children to be the best that they can be in whatever they choose to do with their lives. But, for me, the bigger and more beautiful burden on my heart is for each athlete that comes through my program and each of my children to walk away more in love with their Creator, less defined by the world and the scoreboard, and more in tune with who God says they are.

Loss is a common human experience. We all lose.  But those losses do not define us. Definitions are left to God. He is the one who defines us and reveals our true identity. Each loss endured in an opportunity to build a foundation of eternal perspective that we can always plant your feet on: God has won, I am good enough, and I will be ok. Because of my losses, I can say with confidence that I am made for more than winning. And I am made for more than losing. I'm made for more than any result or accolade. I am made for something so much more than I could ever accomplish on my own. I am made to redefine competition because I know that the battle has already been won.