“They’re not good, they’re just lucky!” is the classic counterpoint thrown out by would-be sports sceptics. However, your disgruntled uncle might be onto something when he proclaims your team’s success as simply boiling down to luck. 

In the sporting world, millions upon millions of variables ultimately dictate whether a given person will succeed as an athlete. Sure, athleticism plays a large role, but the mind is equally important. How does that athlete face adversity or fame? Do they get a big head and underestimate the competition or do they stay motivated to strive for greatness?

As the evil Tom Brady once said, “Sometimes success is just as challenging as failure.”

A painfully corny quote, no doubt, but the sentiment nonetheless rings true. In order for the athlete to have “all the right stuff,” the stars truly need to align. This is to say nothing of the incredibly fortuitous circumstances that must fall into place for an athlete to get their chance to shine. After all, you could have all the pieces put together, but if you never get your break — never see the field or court — how will you get the chance to make an impact? 

The aforementioned Tom Brady got his golden ticket when the Patriots’ starting quarterback, Drew Bledsoe, went down with a season-ending injury in 2001. From that seemingly arbitrary moment, a two-decade-long reign of terror was born. Yet Brady didn’t do it alone. Football, being the two-sided sport it is, his teams were buoyed by incredible defensive performances for the vast majority of his career. I’m sure I need not remind any wounded Seahawks fans of the goal-line interception a decade ago, but it nonetheless illustrates my point perfectly. If the Seahawks move the ball just one more yard in that situation, they almost certainly win the Super Bowl, leaving Tom Brady defeated. This brings us to the conundrum of whether Tom Brady won the Super Bowl or if the Seahawks simply lost it. Some would argue that Brady’s palpable winning aura willed his team to success, but science has yet to corroborate such an influence.

Sports history is filled with these “what if” moments. What if Maradona doesn’t get away with his “Hand of God”? What if Michael Jordan wasn’t handed a super team to carry him? And perhaps the biggest question of all — the one on every Chicagoan’s mind — what if my Chicago Bears had drafted Patrick Mahomes? The point is that these moments define careers. At the time, they had varying levels of perceived importance — no one thought Mahomes would be as consequential a player as he has — but they nonetheless had massive ramifications for everyone involved. These moments pile up in a player’s career, and they can begin at an incredibly early age. Maybe a high school coach recognizes the latent talent in one of the kids or maybe they don’t. How many athletes with outstanding potential are never given the chance to excel because they don’t receive the same level of support as others? How many times has the coach’s kid been chosen to start a game while the budding star sits on the sidelines?

I am not saying that some of the greatest athletes can base all of their success on luck, but it is certainly an overlooked contributor to some of the most impactful sports stories. Professional athletes must devote an extraordinary amount of time and effort to sustain their bodies at peak performance, yet they also have to be a little lucky that those bodies don’t decide to crumble at the worst times. How many times have we witnessed gruesome, career-ending injuries in the heat of life-defining moments? Something as seemingly inconsequential as a sprained ankle in someone’s youth can hang like a shadow over their athletic pursuits. Athletic careers are littered with these inconspicuous run-ins with fate; they define legacies from the sidelines, acting like the butterfly’s wings that cause hurricanes. So the next time anyone tries to take joy in their team doing well, feel free to don that wet blanket and hit them with “They’re not good, they’re just lucky.”