A Word About Trophies

At the risk of sounding like a grumpy old man, I want to talk for a minute about trophies and why, exactly, it is that kids even play sports. As a psychology major, I greatly enjoy dissecting and analyzing why people – kids included – do what they do. Sometimes I am completely unable to understand a person’s motivation for a specific act and sometimes I think I understand, but I am waaaay off. Like the time I claimed that Jennifer Aniston was such a bad actress because she was signaling to me through the television. I have since discovered (and I discovered this before the retraining order, so I was not in violation) that this was not actually the case – she merely has bad timing. In my defense, I’d like to point out that I was not attacking her – I was merely trying to get close enough to explain that I am already married and I cannot possibly have the kind of relationship with her that she is asking for. So, sometimes I’m wrong.

But, I feel fairly confident in saying that the reason kids play sports is not to get a trophy at the end of the year. Although it is just my opinion, I believe there could be no trophies given to each team member at the end of a season and it wouldn’t increase or decrease the number of kids participating in each sport. For those of you who are reading this in preparation for your child’s first season of organized athletics, let me fill you in on what the heck I’m talking about.

At the end of every sports season your child will receive a trophy. Nothing terribly elaborate – maybe a little six inch high job with a baseball player or a soccer player or what have you. The name plate generally won’t be personalized but will list the year and sport played. And Junior is going to get one of these every single season. Every season.

The reason I comment on this is because this is Not How It Was When I Was A Kid. Now, as I have mentioned, I was a pretty good athlete. Captain of two teams, winner of three state championships – have I mentioned it? Anyway, I mention it here to point out that I was not a bookworm who never participated in sports (a fact which can be verified with my old report cards) – I played three sports a year from the time I was in second grade through high school. And I was 14 years old before I received my first trophy.

Ah, I remember it well – Coach Page’s summer basketball camp. I received a Player of the Week trophy – the smallest trophy I ever got, I think. A little granite base holding a gold basketball player shooting the most awkward one handed shot imaginable (I think Coach Page had this designed especially for me). I remember the incredible amount of work it took to earn that trophy – how much extra hustle I had to put in, how much sweat and effort. I earned that trophy and no one else. The other players could have earned it, but it was me who beat them out – for that week, I was the star.

I had to ride my bike home with one hand to carry the glorious monument to my hard work and effort and I intentionally rode through town so that anyone who happened to see me would know that I – Aaron Bradbury – had won a trophy. During the next four years I received probably half a dozen individual trophies and they were all great, but the feeling I had from winning that first trophy was amazing. It was a beautiful thing and I can honestly say it was one of the prouder moments of my life.

Kids These Days don’t get to experience that feeling. And I don’t say that to be the crotchety old guy who thinks everything was better when he was young. As a child of the 70s and 80s, I can say with great confidence that everything was definitely not better when I was young. For proof positive, I give you disco and the Police Academy movies. I say kids don’t get that feeling because these days kids get trophies for every sport they play; therefore, it is impossible that they are getting any sort of a rush out of receiving one. After all, if you play Little League, you get a trophy, regardless of whether you were good, bad or even owned a glove. You can be the worst damned player in the history of the sport and still get a trophy. You can show up for half the games and play like a monkey humping a football during the other half and it doesn’t matter – you still get the trophy.

I’m sure this all started as a misguided effort to boost all the kids’ confidence and make everyone feel like they were a valuable part of the team. I’m sure that the same type of adults who decided every player needs a trophy were the same group that decided we shouldn’t keep score during soccer games - misguided individuals who either don’t have kids of their own or never talk to them if they do. These are the kind of adults who think kids are too stupid to keep track of the score on their own. I have news for you – the only people not keeping score are the adults. Every kid on the soccer field knows the score. Do these people really think kids can’t keep track of a game that is going to have a final score of 2 to 1? Or in the case of some of my teams, 10 to 1?

Trophies are the same kind of thing. When a kid gets a trophy at the end of the season he isn’t fooled into thinking he was instrumental to the team if his biggest contribution was accidentally tripping an opposing player on the sideline. He can see all the other members of the team getting the trophies, too. It’s not rocket science to understand that every player getting a trophy means the trophy is worthless.

To be honest, I blame my parents’ generation for starting this. When I was a kid our school held an annual field day – kind of a mini-Olympics where we did all the run and jump track and field events. At the end of the day, the first second and third place finishers for each event at each grade level were given a blue, red or white ribbon denoting their accomplishment. And anyone to uncoordinated to get a real ribbon was given a green “nice try” ribbon that my brothers and sister used to refer to as a “loser identification badge.” I never understood the concept. By sticking a green ribbon on these kids, it just advertised to the whole world that they didn’t win a damn thing that day – that just seems cruel to me. After all, if they were wearing no ribbon at all maybe other kids would just think they won a real ribbon and had decided not to wear it. Of course, that is probably also wishful thinking, because Poindexter probably wasn’t going to fool anyone into thinking he actually placed in an event – everyone has seen him during dodgeball in gym class and it would be pretty unlikely that he was anything other than entertaining during a footrace.

But you know what? Poindexter had every other day of school to shine – he got straight As and never once got yelled at for wiping boogers on the pigtails of the girl in front of him. Field day was the one day of the year where a guy like me could shine, so why give the losers ribbons, too? No teacher ever thought to give me a B just because all the other kids got an A and I shouldn’t feel left out. Shouldn’t the message be that everyone is different and some people are good at the long jump and some people understand what the quadratic equation is – it doesn’t make one person better than the other (although, statistically speaking, it makes one kid more likely to go to MIT and then make tons of dough upon graduation).

Again, my guess is that this all started as a misguided attempt to make kids who didn’t do so well feel as good as the kids that did, but it misses the mark. It’s patronizing and the kids know it. Unfortunately, there is not much to be done now – I’m not about to be the guy who crusades for taking trophies away from kids. The damage is done and the only thing left to do is make the best of a bad situation. That’s where my plan comes in.

Instead of having a banquet or cookout to give out the trophies to everyone, the coach needs to visit each player’s house individually and present the trophy to the kid in private, telling him that nobody else got a one, but that he deserved a trophy. Tell him it has to be kept secret because, well, I don’t know – make something up. The trophy is a matter of national security and must be kept in a safe and completely hidden place such as the back of the closet.
I’m not sure that kids will buy this, but it can’t be any worse than what we do now.