This has been on my facebook feed and talk radio the last couple days with a good majority seemingly in agreement with Harrison. I feel like this sentiment is especially strong among those who don’t have kids. Many years ago I might have agreed, myself.
But I remember seeing my then four year old son get a medal for a sport where all he did was participate and man, he lit up. He wore that thing with pride for days. He wanted to sleep with it.
Even when I was in little league, you got a trophy for being on the championship winning team or being an all star. Nobody else got trophies. But one year my coach gave everyone on our 3rd place team a trophy and came up with some “award” for each kid. I think everyone really appreciated that. That coach said, “every kid should get a trophy.” And you know what, I think he’s right. There are kids out there who aren’t James Harrison’s sons and they might never “win” a trophy. So give them their little moment, what’s the big deal? James Harrison’s too macho to let his kids get trophies, that’s his prerogative. I don’t know why he had to make a big public display of it on instragram.
Now, there’s an age where participate trophies can stop. I don’t know what age that is, but surely at some point kids get old enough to realize that moment is somewhat diminished.
Everyone deserves a trophy. Not everyone deserves a trophy in everything. I never had a chance at any trophy in any sport, and I knew it. But I still got plenty of science and math trophies, which I actually earned. If anyone had contrived some reason for me to get a baseball trophy, I’d have been insulted by it.
The guy’s an ass. He just stole his kid’s trophies and gave them away. There’s nothing wrong with participation trophies as long as people still get performance trophies.
I don’t see the harm in giving participation trophies to very young athletes. Just showing up to every game and sticking with a sport for 8-10 games is an accomplishment for kids under, I don’t know, 8 or so.
Should middle and high school kids get participation trophies? No, that’s not right. But I agree with Barkis that it really lights up the day for a lot of little ones and makes them want to stick with a sport.
Kids who are 6 and 8 earn something by learning, not by winning.
I bet there’s some little shit on the winning team who didn’t try, didn’t learn and didn’t care, but that kid “earned” a trophy. I’d also bet there’s a kid on a losing team who worked his ass off, learned about the game, learned skills he didn’t have before and who’s only recognition, apparently, should be “Too bad, loser. Be a winner next time.”
If Harrison’s thinks his kids did “nothing” to earn recognition, that’s pretty sad. Spent a whole season working, practicing, competing and their dad thinks they did nothing.
Of course, this winning-only thing didn’t count WRT Harrison’s paychecks. He cashed his check when his team didn’t win, because he did the work, he did his best, he earned it.
I don’t have any problem with excellence and winning being MORE recognized than participation, but to say kids who trained and played hard did “nothing” is bullshit.
I agree… there’s no harm in giving everyone a trophy for participating on the team, especially the very young players. It’s not any different than if you were to give the kids a plaque for the wall, or a framed team picture, EXCEPT that the kids really treasure the trophies- it’s a validation of their hard work and dedication.
For a lot of those kids, that’s why they are on the team in the first place. It’s a little bit pitiful, but some of them are on the team and put all that effort in, just so they can see it validated by that dinky little trophy they get at the end of the season, even if they didn’t catch any balls, win any races, hit any balls, or score any goals. They just want someone to recognize that they tried, and that they were part of the team.
And that’s the sort of attitude we want to encourage, not beat into the dirt simply because these kids weren’t “winners” or the best at 8 years old. Do we really want to teach our kids to win at all costs, or that if you’re not the winner, then you’re a loser? I don’t; nobody can always win at all things, and it’s more important to teach our children to be inclusive and to work as a team and to lift up and support team members who maybe aren’t as good or who aren’t performing up to their normal standards, than it is to stress that winning is the only goal.
That’s the point of the trophies- ideally it rewards that behavior in children, not merely being good at the sport itself. Nobody’s saying that they were any good at the sport, or that they “won” anything- they’re just acknowledging that they’re part of the greater whole, and contributed to its activities and successes, and were in part responsible for whatever failures there were too.
They’re participation trophies. The kids earned it by participating. Presumably they showed up for every practice and every game. And the award reflects that.
If winning is the only thing that matters, then I’ll point out the Steelers didn’t win the Super Bowl last year. Will James Harrison be returning his paycheck because he didn’t earn it with a championship ring?
Not every kid will earn a trophy in something. Believe it or not, there are kids who aren’t the at top of sports or school. Or music. Or dance. Or anything. If that kid feels good about a trophy for “keeping his head in the game” or some other made up award, I’m not going to piss on it.
I’ve been hearing about Michael Jordan getting cut from the varsity basketball team and how that drove him to be the best. Well, let’s not forget that Michael was a friggin’ high school sophomore at that time, not a 6 year old kid.
I have a feeling the key word is “trophies.” You can give out “participation certificates” just as easily as trophies.
I also have a feeling this whole sting stems from the “it doesn’t matter who wins; in fact, why bother keeping score?” mentality. The parents can pretend all they want that there are no losers; the kids are keeping score anyway. (Anyone remember playing softball / kickball / basketball at recess in elementary school? Do you remember ever playing a game where nobody cared about who won or lost the game? Okay, it didn’t matter much the next day, or even ten minutes later, but still, Playing To Win mattered.)
Except those guys worked their asses off ( plus a buttload of talent) to even reach the NFL.
And I doubt any of them never played a single minute all season.
It doesn’t have to be about “it doesn’t matter who wins; in fact, why bother keeping score?”. It can be about teamwork. What’s wrong with a participation trophy if outstanding players get performance trophies? Why does this have to be all about one or the other? I didn’t grow up with participation trophies and I didn’t win any performance trophies either, so it hardly seems like a necessity to me, but if some people think it’s a good idea then there’s nothing wrong with giving everybody on the team a trophy for something. Kids are not so dumb they’ll think their trophy for showing up is the same as the one for the guy with the best stats.
Because I am under the impression that the leagues that give out “participation trophies” tend to be the ones that don’t give out “performance trophies” as it defeats the purpose of the participation trophies in the first place. If you want to test the “everybody gets a trophy and it’s not a problem” hypothesis, give the last place team’s players “LAST PLACE” trophies and see what happens.
Isn’t the whole point of “everybody gets a trophy” that kids are “supposed to” think that the participation trophies are every bit as good as the “best stats” or “winning team” trophies? If a participation trophy has the stigma of a “losers’ trophy,” then there’s a good chance that giving them out makes things worse.
I don’t think participation trophy only leagues are something horrible, but I don’t think kids would care much about the trophies then.
I have no idea what they’re supposed to do, but I don’t think trophies should have to do anything anyway. They’re just trophies, I wouldn’t make so much of a big deal about it to start with.
Now where’s my Most Improved Bowler trophy? I want to shine that thing up.
You get Super Bowl rings for being a part of the winning team. The Jacksonville Jaguars best players (if that is even a thing) did not get rings.
*- Has kids who played sports and did not get participation chotchkies. They played because they liked playing not because of a trophy / certifcate / ribbon / coupon for a free personal Pizza Hut pizza at the end of the season. What lit up their face was the jersey. They wore it on non game days and for as long as the jersey could be passably worn after the season had ended.