(UPDATE: Follow-up with additional video)
Michigan State basketball Coach Tom Izzo seems to agree with this writer about how we’re currently living in the “everyone gets a trophy” generation.
We’re currently in the midst of college football award watch list season; the perfect example of this offense. Not only is it absurd that players are being handed “preseason” awards (like that guy you knew in college who was “prelaw” or “premed”, but pretty much anybody who started a game in their career are named to these watch lists.
Congrats to QB @15_DakP for being named to the watch list for the 2015 @WalterCampFF National Player of the Year! pic.twitter.com/kghTt8luTx
— Mississippi State Football (@HailStateFB) July 17, 2015
(see what you’ve done Football Writers Association of America with your preseason awards and preseason award watch lists)
The Doak Walker Award (nation’s best college football running back) has 69 names on it! There’s only 125 teams in FBS! Every year these preseason award watch lists (or as I call them, garbage spam emails that I always delete before opening) grow in number and length. School Media Relations folk then spam the inboxes of their media with pointless press releases that no thinking person should ever care about.
These watch lists are just a grown-up extension of the “participant trophy” mentality with which this generation of college kids was raised.
“HBO Real Sports” will convey how this practice is doing more harm than good on Tuesday night. Set your DVRs. Here’s an excerpt from the press release they just sent out and a preview video:
debuts TUESDAY, JULY 21 (10:00-11:00 p.m. ET/PT), exclusively on HBO.
*Trophy Culture. Today’s young athletes are being celebrated like never before, with youth sports awarding trophies whether kids win or lose. This generational shift towards building self-esteem has turned the trophy industry into a billion-dollar business, but some experts say America’s trophy culture may actually be doing more harm than good. REAL SPORTS correspondent Bernard Goldberg looks at how handing out trophies, regardless of success, may ultimately lead to failure.
As for Izzo, here’s the soundbite from January 16th, 2014, following MSU’s win at Northwestern. I suggest you read the entire quotation (at this link) though to get full context.
“It is a little harder to motivate kids I guess because they’ve been pampered so much. We’re in the trophy generation, give ’em a trophy for 23rd place, make ’em feel good. Make mom and dad feel good, you know.”
Kudos to HBO Real Sports for showcasing a maladaptive practice that needs to be extinguished. Now if we can only end the deplorable scourge on humanity that is college football preseason award watch list season.
Paul M. Banks owns, operates and writes The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with Fox Sports Digital. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, currently contributes to the Chicago Tribune RedEye edition. He also appears regularly on numerous sports talk radio stations all across the country.
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