Following up on the post we did last Friday, HBO Real Sports aired a damning expose on American participation trophy culture. Lots of kids today get trophies not just for winning, not just for effort, but for simply signing up. Not even showing up mind you, just simply being on the roster. Woody Allen famously said that half of success in life is just showing up, but today parents are teaching kids that you can find 100% of success by not even showing up.
In the clip below from Real Sports, Brian Sanders, president of i9 Sports, and researcher Ashley Merryman talk more about America’s trophy culture:
You can see how damaging this is once these kids become adults and enter college. As we pointed out last week, college football preseason awards and preseason award watch lists are a prime example of this “everyone gets a trophy” mentality. The same exact principles behind giving all children trophies, regardless of result, is at work in the construction of college football preseason award watch lists.
The trophy industry is booming, and it’s become a legitimate force in the American economy. Someone has to make and sell all those trophies that go to all those kids. Similarly, when you put 70 names on the Doak Walker Award (nation’s best collegiate running back) watch list, it means all those schools will promote it, and hence media (in theory anyway) would promote it.
So the player and school gets free publicity without accomplishing anything and perhaps the football program sells more tickets. Lastly, if you’re a media member who gives in to this ruse and does their bidding, you’ve shown that you’re not trying too hard yourself. As these kids learn they can get rewarded without having to succeed, or even try that hard, the media member is just as guilty.
After all, your story is nothing more than a copied and pasted press release which reports nothing news-worthy. Kudos to Real Sports for exposing this widespread practice. Many of the fundamental principles which define modern America: capitalism, pure competition, so called free markets, are built on the foundation of rewarding success. They are not built on the concepts of rewarding anyone and anything, regardless of productivity or success. An important lesson we can learn from the Real Sports segment is that you need a healthy amount of Social Darwinism in your society.
Eradicating Social Darwinism completely leads to disaster.
Paul M. Banks owns, operates and writes The Sports Bank.net, which is part of the FOX Sports Engage Network. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, currently contributes to the Chicago Tribune RedEye edition. He also appears regularly on numerous talk radio stations all across the country.