If you don’t put any effort into a class–you don’t participate, complete assignments, or study for the big exam–and you fail, you’ve made one kind of statement with that failure.
But when it comes to something that might not work—leading a fundraiser, trying out for the team, producing a musical in your community, etc.—if you really put in the time and the effort to get the result you wanted and things still just don’t go your way, you’ve made a very different failure statement.
The former statement is: I didn’t care enough to try.
The latter statement is: I cared enough to try in the face of potential failure.
Make enough good failure statements and you’ll eventually have plenty of successes to talk about. And you’ll inevitably have plenty of college options.