The Anti-Champions

What was the real price of staying an undefeated Gladiator? I was 42, and I'd never had an undefeated season in anything. It didn't bother me, though, because I'd played on a number of teams before and had followed enough other teams, both pro and amateur, to understand how elusive an undefeated season can be. And yet, in my second year as a high school tennis coach, I found myself at the helm of a team - we'll call them the "Gladiators" - that stood an excellent chance of winning every match. In our pre-season meeting, I expressed this to the team, and declared that our goal for the year was to be undefeated, a perfect twelve for twelve. A proud silence filled the room. The returning players paused to consider our 9-3 record the previous year. They knew that the defending champions would be losing several key players while the Gladiators remained more or less intact. While I'd publicly expressed my goal of being undefeated, I had also set several personal goals that I didn't articulate in the meeting. The previous season, the Gladiators won a lot of matches and had fun, but I was never quite satisfied, because...