Play or Win: If You Had to Choose, What Would You Do?

If you were a top-flight athlete, would you go to a team where you knew you could play, or would you go to a team where you thought you would win?

Sure, the obvious answer is "both." But that's not always possible, even when conventional wisdom says your team is a title contender. Just look at the Philadelphia Eagles, for starters. Nnamdi Asomugha thought he'd be playing and winning in Philly, but so far, there hasn't been much winning. Vince Young, who coined the ill-conceived Dream Team moniker, picked Philly to hitch on with a winner, not because he thought he would get a chance to play. Had Young gone to a perennial loser like Buffalo…wait, bad example.

If you had to choose between sitting on the bench until your number was called for a team with a real chance at greatness or being an important contributor to a team that had to overachieve just to succeed, which would you pick?

There are somewhere around 5,000 professional athletes in America playing at "the highest level" of their respective sport, and most of them, because of the draft system set in place, don't get to pick where they play until they become free agents (or get cut).

If you add international sports leagues, especially the wide network of soccer clubs around the globe, that number grows exponentially. Of course, we all wish we were Cesc Fabregas, who left being a captain of a top team in English Premier League to play for Barcelona, widely recognized as the best team in the world. But even Fabregas was relegated to the bench, playing just 30-45 minutes per match until injuries put him into the starting lineup. Regardless of playing time, Fabregas made the decision that being a good player on the best team was more important than being the best player on a good team.

In America, there aren't that many players who get the choice to play wherever they want. In fact, other than top-flight free agents, the only people who can choose to play wherever they want are teenagers. Five-star recruits make these choices every single year.

I couldn't help thinking about this over the weekend, watching a team like Florida play LSU with a freshman quarterback, while TV cameras constantly cut to another freshman quarterback who was hurt on the sidelines. My thoughts didn't go to whether Florida would have fared differently if they had the other kid in against LSU's defense (note: they probably wouldn’t have), but more to this question: Why in the world would two true freshman go play for the same school in the same year?

Florida's roster has eight quarterbacks on it this season, seven of who are sophomores, redshirt freshmen or true freshmen. Sure, half or so are walk-ons, and two of the true freshmen were recruited by different coaches, but that just speaks more to my point. If you are good enough to be recruited by a team like the Gators, why spend that time competing with another kid in your class? One of you will ultimately win the job and the other will be relegated to special packages, holding on kicks or converted to another position. Or transferring. Let's not forget that option.

As for the walk-ons, I applaud their dedication and think a good walk-on system is extremely important for the success of any great program, but I never understand why a kid would rather hold a clipboard for four years and help out as a taxi squad player over going to a smaller school and actually getting a chance to play.

In a vacuum, I understand the mindset. Being a part of a winning team is awesome. But the way the college football system is set up, there are more than 30 teams that get to hoist up trophies at the end of the year, not to mention another crop of playoff teams in the FCS with a chance to win a national title each season. Year after year on sideline after sideline, there are kids who never get in the games. You feel bad for those kids, who work so hard in practice every week. Then you realize this was their choice. They could be playing somewhere else, most likely at a lower level, but they chose to be where they are.

(Yes, let's mention that walk-on players often go to a school for the academics, knowing they won't have a career in their chosen sport. I understand that has a lot to do with it. I also understand that there are a lot of good schools with football teams where these kids could be stars. And yes, maybe in this case, the Florida example falls a bit short because in-state kids in Florida get to go to state schools for almost nothing, so it’s not like all those quarterbacks are walking on at Standford and paying tens of thousands of dollars a year to not play football instead of earning a scholarship at a less competitive school.)

Look, I'll admit I'm wandering around a bit on this column, going from college football quarterbacks to professional cornerbacks to a guy like (to add another name to this) Clint Dempsey, who is a world class talent for the United States men's soccer team and has to eventually decide if he's better suited splitting time for one of the best clubs in the world or playing a full 90 minutes for a team like Fulham.

I don’t know what I'd do if I were in his shoes. The college football situation is easy. If another kid is going to the school you want to go to and you think he's going to play over you, there are 100 other schools to play for. Sure, ego gets in the way and kids always think they'll win the job, but coaches habitually pick their favorites, so thinking you're the best and getting the playing time you feel you deserve are never the same thing.

But a professional? There are a lot of factors at play. There's a contract to worry about—being the best player on a team could, in theory, land you a bigger payday. There's also the quality of life situation—how far do you want to play from your home, or in the case of someone like Dempsey, do you want to play in a country where you don't speak the same language as everyone else? Maybe it's not as simple as "play or win."

Actually, it's never as simple as "play or win." But let's make it that simple. I'm asking you, directly, what you would do. Would you choose to play or would you choose to win?

If you have an experience where you had to make a decision like this in your past, please share it in the comments. If you are a schlub like me whose most athletic endeavor in the last decade was being the top scorer on your sandlot summer soccer league, let us know what you would do in this situation.

Have I even told you what I would do yet? Let's do that now: I would choose playing over winning. I don't think I'd want to be the best player on a terrible team (that team would certainly be terrible if I was the best player), but I think I'd much rather be on a team where I could play and contribute on the field (and not just in practice or for 15 minutes as a spark at the end of a match) than being a guy who gets to hold a trophy or cut down a net without ever getting out of my warm-ups.

Everyone wants to win, but if you're a player, I think winning would mean more if you actually got to play.