Having a winning attitude

I may be fairly new to chess but as far as sports go I have been around them my whole life. Now chess may be different so correct me if I’m wrong (which I’m not) but I thought games were played to be won? I have come to notice recently that if a chess player realizes they are in a less than ideal position then they will resign. This really bugs me. Now I am guilty of resigning once, but that resignation is what has prompted this article. I was always told this adage that I have come to live by (at least when it comes to sports and competition) "Quitters never win, And winners never quit" this to me is what sport is all about. there is no stopping a football game with 1 quarter left just because the one team is winning, you don't stop baseball at the seventh inning stretch just because a team is losing by a few points. So why then is this practice so common in chess? In some instances I have come to realize that resignation is almost expected by some players, which I find unfortunate. Yes I know it is lame to sit there and crush your opponent to bits, but losing builds character and it allows your opponent to see what mistakes they made and how to fix them in the future. If they quit early then they can’t know the result therefore they cannot learn nearly as much. This opportunity also allows you to see what mistakes you made as well because of course no game is perfect. I think that resignation especially in such a skilled and tactical game is foolish. Chess is a war strategy game, now I have never heard of a general who has said “oh, well we lost that battle might as well just go home and face a certain death.” Chess is a series of battles as I see it, each piece representing a section of the army fighting a different battle. So though most of the battles may be lost that doesn’t mean that the war is over. Keep fighting and who knows you may come out a winner in the end.