Participation Trophies
This day has been a long time coming and I couldn’t be more excited to get this first post out to the world. I wouldn’t necessarily call it procrastination. I think it’s probably best described as a lack of properly prioritizing my time. That is behind me now and the adventure begins as we discuss participation trophies.
My family loves sports with a ferocious passion. We love playing sports, watching sports, learning about new sports, talking about sports, and sharing our opinions on anything and everything sports related. I don’t expect you to or even want you to agree with everything I have to say. I encourage and welcome your feedback, suggestions, and comments. We believe that everyone’s voice and opinion can and should be heard. However, I ask that you remain respectful when posting your comments. Please remember that a huge part of sports is sportsmanship. I believe in being good role models, being ethical, moral, and respectful at all times. It’s our responsibility to set good examples for the youth of the world. I will delete any and all responses that do not follow these guidelines.
Speaking of youth, how do you feel about participation trophies? This is and obviously will be an on-going debate for some time to come. I can tell you that there was no such thing when I was a kid. Children today do start participating in sports at a slightly younger age, (soccer, t-ball, pee wee basketball, etc.), but what about the experience of losing and learning something from it? It’s apparent that I am not a fan, but there are two sides to every story. Let’s talk a little more about that and also why I feel it’s crucial to get all kids involved in sports when they are young.
Proponents will argue that participation trophies teach children at an early age the importance of contributing to a team and learning to be reliable by showing up. They will also tell you that especially for less athletic or introverted kids, it helps them with social skills, encourages an active lifestyle, and gets them to try new things. They feel that many parents would not nudge their kids along to be involved if there was no reward at the end. How hard you nudge is its own debate and I will touch on that shortly.
Opponents, like me, believe that experiencing failure is how you learn to succeed. Not actually earning the reward promotes the rampant epidemic of a sense of entitlement that so many of our youth exude. Not everyone is athletic, but if a child is taught to work hard and praised for giving their best effort in everything they do (win or lose), that is much more rewarding than a piece of plastic you set on a shelf.
One good compromise for preschool and elementary school age children that I can agree with is not keeping score during the games. I believe it is much more important at that age to learn how to play the game, how to interact with your teammates and coaches, and to have lots of fun. Playing sports is all about having fun and unfortunately, I’ve seen way too many children not only not having fun, but feeling miserable and looking very out of place. It is our responsibility as parents and coaches to do our best to make it fun and to include everyone equally.
There are many decisions that we make as parents in the course of our children’s lives. Some have a life-long impact on them. There are volumes of books on this subject and I have no intention of trying to dive in too deep. However, my wife and I have raised three children and they all have participated in sports to some degree. I am going to share some of the things that we went through and how we handled it.
When you are a sports fanatic like me and you start having children, you immediately picture them being super successful in sports (and everything else). They all had mini basketball goals and mini basketballs before they were even able to walk. As they began walking and getting their feet under them, throwing and catching balls helped them with their coordination and motor skills. Almost all kids love throwing balls at an early age. It’s important to remember that this doesn’t mean that they are going to want to play sports as they get older.
My father was an all-state athlete in multiple sports. I have always been an above average athlete with the ability to excel at most sports coming naturally to me. It’s awesome if athletic ability is in your family’s genes. Let me remind you that every child is unique. Ultimately, only time will tell if they have the same desire and love of sports that you do.
As I mentioned, we introduced our kids to sports and outdoor recreation at an early age and we did this for several reasons:
- We felt it important to get outside in nature with them and see how fun it is just to run and jump and play games.
- It’s beneficial to create the great habit of getting daily exercise as it is not only good for the body, but good for the mind as well.
- We created family-friendly contests like timed obstacle courses at the playground. It wasn’t so much a competition to see who could finish the fastest. It was always more of a goal to beat your own best time. All of the kids enjoyed this immensely and helped form the competitive spirit that is instilled in them today as adults. It’s this spirit that has helped them each reach career goals that they would not have necessarily achieved otherwise.
- We taught them to always give their best effort in everything they do and we praised them for the effort, not the results.
As they got to school age, we signed them up for all of the team youth sports that were available. This allowed them to experience each one and form their own opinions on what they liked and disliked. It doesn’t matter what we like, it only matters what they like and enjoy participating in.
Our twin daughters are very coordinated and they both gravitated to playing softball in the early years. Though petite in size, they have natural level batting swings. They have an eye for the ball at the plate that you just can’t teach. I’ll never forget the first time an opposing coach told his outfielders to move into the fringe of the infield when one of my daughters came up to bat. An inside the park home run that hit the fence on one bounce later, and that never happened again. They were actually little softball phenoms in elementary school. We thought we’d be watching them play for many, many years to come. They were retired by age 9 and never participated in organized sports again. Their interests redirected to academics and band. They both ended up being valedictorians of their senior class in high school.
Our son is athletically gifted as well and was one of the smaller kids in his age group. He was an all-star baseball player and he lost interest in the game by age 10. He switched to basketball and played school ball and AAU ball until 8th grade. It wasn’t long after that, he too lost his interest in all organized sports. He then concentrated on academics and other extracurricular activities.
I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t disappointed that they all chose to quit playing. They were very good athletes and I enjoyed watching and coaching them very much. However, I’m glad that we did not push them to do something that they no longer had a passion for. I’ve seen that happen with so many families and the results are always not good. We have to remember that it is their lives. Even though they are young people, these are their decisions to make.
As their pursuits changed to other things, we gave them our support in their new endeavors. We always continued to encourage them to give 110% effort in everything they did. By the time they reached high school, they were very self-motivated on their own.
When your mindset is to give 100% effort and have fun while you are doing it, a participation award or trophy isn’t needed. If your children know that you love and support them, and you praise them for always trying their hardest, that’s the best reward they can ever get. It’s our jobs as parents to make them feel good about themselves and to enjoy their childhood.
Some of you have children who are currently participating in sports. Please make sure that they are having tons of fun while doing it. They only get one childhood. They should always be playing because they want to, not because we want them to. It’s important to note that about 7% of all high school athletes play varsity sports in college. Less than 2% of those are at NCAA Division 1 schools. Some of you might have kids that are extremely gifted in sports. They may have an opportunity to play in college or even professionally. I hope that happens for all of them.
I want to point out that just because my children stopped playing organized sports, that didn’t mean we quit playing, watching and enjoying sports at home. On the contrary, we have never stopped. When the weather cooperates, you will often find us playing wiffle ball, basketball, cornhole, etc. on the weekends. Sports has always been something that brings us together and I will forever be grateful for that.
I do believe with all my heart that every child should be introduced to sports at an early age. They should be given an equal opportunity to participate and it’s up to us to make that happen. Playing sports is universal. It’s a common thread that connects our world together like nothing else. It is truly for everyone.There is a plethora of unique sports out there that require all different kinds of skill sets and abilities. A goal of this website is to introduce you to sports from one end of the world to the other.
