The Participation Trophy Problem

If you were anything like me as a kid, you grew up playing little-league sports.  You went to practice three or four times a week and had games a couple days a week.  Your mom drove the minivan back and forth to the field or gym and wholeheartedly supported you in what you considered to be the most significant sports event of the decade.  It was a big deal to go out and compete with other kids your age for the coveted plastic trophies that would be handed out at the end of the season.  Today, however, liberals are trying to deprive children of these cherished games in the name of “fairness” and “equality.”  Competition reduces kids’ self-esteem, they say, so we should make all of them winners by default.  Not only is this mindset keeping children from valuable memories, but it is teaching them that they are entitled to success and that hard work is something to be frowned upon.

Last year, Michael Sigman at The Huffington Post Blog noted that studies show grades being sucked into the vacuum of the “everyone wins” mentality.  With 86% of private school students receiving no grade lower than a “B” and 43% of all college students receiving an “A,” even grades that were once meant to demonstrate knowledge are now being politicized and degraded of their value.  Rather than requiring students to work hard to earn good grades, schools are increasingly rewarding students for simply showing up and subsequently raising a generation who feels entitled to success.

As Karen Coffin at the National Federation of State High School Associations noted, competition exists at all levels.  It’s unavoidable.  We compete in some way with everything from ourselves to our peers to our parents to our enemies.  Competition is an unmistakable part of everything; even a slight edge over your opponent in any given situation is greatly coveted by a majority of people.  We compete against the odds in many situations to obtain goals and dreams.  As Coffin put it, “Overcoming problems in preparation teaches a player to handle adversity later.”  A high-school football team full of players who know they don’t have to play hard to win is going to be a team full of unmotivated teenagers who will become unmotivated adults.  Why would a kid devote precious time and energy to winning a game when they know they’ll be awarded a trophy at the end, regardless of whether they win or lose?  By encouraging a laziness in sports, we consequently encourage a laziness in all areas.

With the start of football season this weekend, now is a better time than ever to reexamine the importance of competition in our lives.  You compete with yourself for good grades, with your teammates for a captain position, with your peers for a good job, with your co-workers for that big raise, with your neighbors for the most attractive house on the block.  NFL players don’t have victories handed to them on a silver platter– they train hard year-round to stay in shape and improve their game.  They know that if they want to win, they have to work hard and not give up until they’ve achieved the desired outcome.  That same mindset is applicable to every aspect of life; trophies shouldn’t be given just for participation.  Competition forces you to challenge yourself to be better, whether it be in a certain area or as a person overall.  No one ever suffered because they had to compete for what they wanted.

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