Participation Trophies for Kids in Sport

The post by Allistair McCaw

Participation trophies for kids in sport. Why ‘pitching up’ doesn’t deserve an award

A few months back, I read a piece that had been tweeted by a professional athlete and father, James Harrison of the NFL Pittsburgh Steelers. It was about participation trophies for kids who played sports. It went like this:

“I came home to find out that my boys received two trophies for nothing, participation trophies! While I am very proud of my boys for everything they do and will encourage them till the day I die, these trophies will be given back until they EARN a real trophy.

I’m sorry I’m not sorry for believing that everything in life should be earned and I’m not about to raise two boys to be men by making them believe that they are entitled to something just because they tried their best…cause sometimes your best is not enough, and that should drive you to want to do better…not cry and whine until somebody gives you something to shut you up and keep you happy.”

I 100% agree with this. In fact, as a kid, I remember getting a trophy a 12 and under tennis tournament that I didn’t win (or was i anywhere near winning) and I remember having a feeling of “I don’t deserve this.”

In fact, each player that entered the tournament got one. To me, a trophy or a medal should be a symbol for something earned, not a token of appreciation. Awards must mean something because in real life you don’t get an award for pitching up at work!

But even though I probably gave my best effort that day at the tournament, I still felt uncomfortable getting a trophy for just participating. Now, if it was for ‘best effort’ or ‘most improved’, that would have been a completely different story altogether.

I’ve always believed in having 3 trophies at an event: “Best performer”, “Most improved” and “Best effort & attitude.”

I hate to always compare, but when I was growing up, if you sucked, you didn’t get rewarded, it was as simple as that. You got told you needed to work harder to improve. Do you know what that did to me? It taught me resilience, how to bounce back from disappointment and it gave me a determination to get even better. Things that I now have taken forward with me in this thing called life.

You see, sport is a medium that can present so many invaluable life lessons for kids. What are we teaching them if one kid works his hardest and gets the same as another who put in little effort?

I believe that understanding the difference between winning and losing is a massive life lesson. It teaches us how to deal with and overcome adversity, and that you don’t always get what you want. I’m big on letting kids fail because it teaches them how to handle it and how to deal with it. Another thing is that losing also teaches us how to bounce back and recover from loss, while also providing athletes or performers with drive and purpose to be better.

In my opinion, few lessons are more important than that. There is no participation award for life. No one is going to simply hand you the life you want, you need to work hard to get the rewards you desire.

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