The Problem With Betting the Underdog

The Tortoise and the Hare is the worst story we tell to children. Actually, that’s not true. The story is fine, the way it’s told is wrong. 

It’s been awhile since elementary school, so allow me to refresh your memory. A tortoise and a hare engage in a footrace. The turtle, slow, is gonna lose because he’s slow, and he’s slow because he’s a turtle. The bunny, fast, is projected to win because that’s what bunnies do - bunnies hop faster than turtles.

The race begins. The hare bounces himself into a giant lead, like everyone saw coming. The tortoise is way behind, so the hare starts showboating. Napping, talking trash, doing push-ups, spittin’ game to some lady hares, smoking cigs against tree trunks, all of that. He’s not paying attention to anything but himself, and while he’s distracted, the tortoise crosses the finish line before the hare notices. Would ya look at that! The tortoise wins the race.

That’s the way we were taught it in school. Here’s the story simplified further: two opponents, unequal in ability, race. The guy who shouldn’t win, wins. 

It’s an underdog story, and everyone loves an underdog story. It’s like Rocky; amateur turtle gets his shot at the big dance. It’s like Rudy; the guy who shouldn’t be there finds out he belongs there after all. Or it’s like David and Goliath - except David is boring as hell, doesn’t have a slingshot, and avoids Goliath’s punches just long enough for Goliath to fall asleep, so then David wins on a technicality.

So what’s the moral of the story? Repeat after me children: slow and steady wins the race. 

In this race to prove who was faster, it turns out, the turtle was actually faster, by going slower. The race is, of course, a metaphor for life, and now you know, the slow guys will eventually win in the end. You are the tortoise, and if you keep chuggin’ along, you’ll get there some day. That’s all there is to it! Now we can move on to the next lesson. Before we move on though, I do, however, have a quick question for the teacher:

You ever seen a race?

Underdog stories are my favorite stories. I chose Clemson University in part because 5’10” walk-on receiver Hunter Renfrow became a college football hero catching a game-winner as time expired. Everyone loves a Cinderella story during March Madness, and the existence of an unlikely hero makes us wonder if we, too, could one day become heroes. Underdogs teach us that we can triumph and defy the odds with the right combination of determination, resilience, and self-belief.

So why do we ruin the moral of The Tortoise and The Hare? There are many better lessons from this story that we could teach children:

Accept the challenge anyway.

Stay in the fight. 

Don’t worry about what anyone else thinks. 

Keep going, don’t quit.

Focus on your goal. Don’t let temptations distract you.

Instead, we claim slow and steady wins the race. Are we serious?

Above I mentioned that we love an underdog story - we love Batman. Also, we love Superman. Sometimes we love the underdog, and sometimes we love the champion. 

There are times that you will be the tortoise, and times that you will be the hare. The problem with the way the story is taught is that it assumes that you are always the tortoise, all the time. 

Some people are born with inherent advantages in certain fields, and that’s just a fact of life. You’ve heard the saying: 

If you judge a tortoise by its speed in a footrace, it doesn’t matter if he fluke wins because his hare-brained opponent was goofin’ off one time - he’s still slow. As you go through life and find yourself as either the favorite or the undercard, remember the real moral of the story:

Don’t get cocky. If the hare wasn’t an asshole, he’d win the race every time. It wouldn’t make any difference how slow and how steady ol’ turtle boy decided to be that day. Hare would lap him 100 times if he focused on the task. But the hare was showing off, and the tortoise was locked in, and that’s why the tortoise won this time. 

There is nothing wrong with going slow and steady, as long as you keep moving forward. But it does not win the race.

In fact, we don’t know what wins the race, but if you stay humble, keep fighting, and accept the challenge despite the outcome, you’ll likely surprise and impress yourself. And maybe you’ll win.