Baloo the Bear is one of Disney’s all-time greatest animated characters, featuring in the classic ‘The Jungle Book’!
He was the unlikely hero who cared for the man-cub lost in the jungle, the archetypical ‘cool dude’ who seemed to float through life with a positive and endearing mindset.
Of all the bears, he might just be the greatest bear! Of course, astronomically, there is a rival in the ‘Great Bear’, that which is the third-largest constellation in the sky, but there is another bear that could lay claim to such accolades, namely ‘The Golden Bear’, being the nickname for Jack Nicklaus, the golfer.
Tiger Woods may be the most well-known golfer in today’s generations but Jack Nicklaus continues to have a record that is unsurpassed in the four tournaments that make up Major Championships, even by Woods.
He has won more Majors than Woods (18 to Woods’s 15) – he has won 6 Masters compared to 5 by Woods; 5 PGAs compared to 4 for Woods; 4 US Opens compared to 3 by Woods; and the same number of (British) Open Championships.
We could go further and note that in those Major Championships, Nicklaus has come second 18 times (Woods in comparison only 6 times), third nine times (three by Woods), fourth seven times (compared to 6).
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Remarkably, in the 1970s, Nicklaus never finished outside the top five places in the Open Championship.
Nicklaus, however, may lay claim to an even greater accolade (although he would not be the one who would do such claiming, earning him even more right to the accolade), and the evidence above may also point to that.
That accolade is the one whereby his biographer stated that “Nicklaus was a wonderful winner but by far the best loser.” He was right on both counts.
Nicklaus was a wonderful winner as he won so frequently; that would appear to be obvious.
We may be tempted to add that it was easier for him but that would be unfair on him as competition was still tough in those days.
However, he was a wonderful winner not so much on account of how often he won but due to the manner in which he accepted winning.
Even in victory, he was humble, gracious and dignified; interestingly, it was noted that his father insisted that he was, from a very early age, gracious in defeat as much as in victory.
How fathers today can and should learn from the father of Nicklaus in engraining such an attitude in their children.
On one occasion Nicklaus revealed that “I know I’m not going to win every time” which helped him when he did not win to keep perspective.
Most importantly Nicklaus though was the “best loser”.
We might say he had enough experience, judging by the number of second places and other near misses he had in Major Championships.
Perhaps the most enthralling Major golfing moment in history was when Nicklaus and Tom Watson went head-to-head in the final two rounds of the Open in 1977.
Nicklaus ultimately lost by one shot on the final green, after which he went up to Watson, the winner, and with his arms around Watson’s shoulders said, “I gave you my best shot but it was not good enough – congratulations!”
He recognised the ability of others at the same time as seeing that he gave his own best shot.
Gracious and dignified in defeat, for sure. Nicklaus is the real star!
The well-known song ‘The Bare Necessities’ has Baloo singing the lines, “And don't spend your time looking around for something you want that can't be found when you find out you can live without it and go along not thinking about it. I will tell you something true: The bare necessities of life will come to you”.
Just as Baloo the Bear could teach Mowgli crucial life lessons such as these, so important life lessons can be learned from Jack Nicklaus, the Golden Bear.
On the sports field children (and parents, for that matter) need to learn to be able to live without the winning; we cannot always be winning.
The fact is, the bare necessities of sport are the bare necessities of life.
We need to strip sports coaching down to the bare necessities and see it for what it really is.
Sport lays bare a person’s true character, not least in how we respond to victory and defeat.
In sport, as in life, we must not bear grudges but bear fruit. We must learn to grin and bear it, be it winning or losing.
We must learn to be a wonderful winner and the best loser; that is the Major lesson we must take.
There is too much hullabaloo in school sport and not enough Baloo; winning is not a necessity.
Learning is. The answer can be found, not in the Woods, but in the Jungle!
Hook for the bare necessities!