You never want to play not to lose, of course you want to play to win. However, this seems to be a problem with our football and basketball coach. They have a little success and we don’t want more, we just want to shower them with accolades and money for the long term. Or we want to keep giving them credit for what they did 5,10,20 years ago. We always say “at least it’s not as bad as with Ash, Littlepage, Jordan”, but in the end it becomes that bad. Why? Because we are satisfied with mediocrity. We fear losing (badly) more than we pursue winning. It’s time to change that, and it starts with the program leaders, the coaches. It’s even more important than NIL, although I realize they go hand in hand to some extent. But these coaches aren’t worth more of our money to try to salvage anything. I will say this, I bet Cen Conn doesn’t have much NIL, but they play hard and are well coached.