Cam Newton needs to learn how to lose.

Maybe you’ve sensed a slight difference between 2015 Cam Newton and 2016 Cam Newton.  2015 Cam was brash, cocky, and always doing that Superman thing he does.  2016 Cam is churlish, abrupt and uncommunicative, although he does display an excellent fashion sense in his headwear.

Perhaps the difference is that last year Cam’s team, the Carolina Panthers, went 15-1 and went to the Super Bowl, while this season the Panthers are 2-5.  Are the Panthers that much worse?  People always react to adversity in the same way—they call it bad luck.  The fact is that there isn’t much difference between the two teams; heck FiveThirtyEight called the 2015 Panthers the worse 11-0 team of all time. Last season’s schedule was really easy, the sixth easiest based on 2014 winning percentages, and they didn’t beat a single team with a winning record.  Cam Newton won an MVP award.  Everything was great until the Super Bowl.

That’s when the heavily favored Panthers were humiliated by the underdog Broncos.  Newton was petulant, churlish and brief, mostly giving one word answers. He later admitted his behavior was a mistake, but then he pretty much has done the exact same thing this season.

Cam Newton needs to learn how to lose.

Some people will disagree.  Some people will say what made Michael Jordan great was his drive not to lose.  Some people will say that Lebron James has that same drive, and that’s what makes him great.  Lebron once refused to shake hands with his opponent after a game, claiming he was just too competitive.

Hogwash.

Willie Mays, the greatest living baseball player, never refused to shake hands after a game; was he a loser?  The same goes for hundreds of baseball, hockey, basketball and football players.  It’s called sportsmanship.  It’s why we force little league teams to shake after a game; the battle is over, and now we respect our foes.  Showing respect does not diminish us in any way.

Rudyard Kipling’s classic poem If teaches us “If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster/ And treat those two impostors just the same . . . you’ll be a man, my son.” Drive to win is important before the battle, but once the battle is over your enemy is no longer your enemy and should be respected, just as you should expect respect in return.

Is this an important topic?  I think it is.  Look at our political situation (yes, it’s distasteful, but try).  At the GOP convention (in Cleveland, the city of winners?) speakers like Rudy Guiliani said in no uncertain terms that losing wasn’t an option, that a win by Hilary Clinton would mean the start of a totalitarian regime that would enslave mankind (if you think I am overstating what he said, get a transcript). Doubtless the Democrats feels pretty much the same way about a Trump victory in November.

I can’t find exactly who first said “Failure is not an option” (I seem to recall it from the movie Apollo 13) but they were wrong—failure is always an option.  When you think it isn’t, then it justifies any subterfuge in the name of winning.  The important thing isn’t winning, but winning by playing within the rules.  If you elevate winning to an imperative, then it justifies cheating, as well as rudeness.  I don’t have to tell you what rudeness leads to (I probably do, but I prefer to leave it to your imagination).

I hope this season is teaching Cam Newton how to be a better loser.  So far it doesn’t seem to, but the season isn’t half over.  And I’m sure that when Cam Newton is sitting at home watching the Super Bowl in February, I hope he gets to see a better performance in the post-game press conference by the losing conference.

I do hope he keeps rocking the hats, though.