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The spirit of competition
It seems that there is something awry with the spirit of competition.
You don’t have to look very hard to realize that people are terrified to see their children fail at anything. Every kid gets a trophy these days, regardless of whether or not anything has actually been accomplished.
And while the intended message to be delivered with the hundreds of trophies issued by recreation leagues every year is that the sport of choice is just a game, that playing the right way makes everyone a winner, all that’s really accomplished is that children are getting older and older before they realize that accolades aren’t just handed out to everyone in life. We should all get ready for an entire generation of people who are unable to deal with disappointment in life.
Maybe the trophies-for-all concept isn’t necessary to make this point. Maybe our athletic associations could take a page out of the FIRST Robotics book (story page 1) and actually look for players or teams who seek ways advance the game and the spirit of competition while remaining competitive.
The Pascack Pi-oneers, a Robotics Engineering team, was recognized by FIRST Robotics for offering assistance to other teams during their competitions. Congratulations to those kids – they worked hard to create their robot and were rewarded for working even harder to advance learning, teamwork, and sportsmanship, something that is lacking in the mindset of many youthful athletes who learn gamesmanship rather than sportsmanship from the media-driven professional sporting world.
The Pi-oneers earned their award and earned a trip to the national robotics competition. Their team didn’t build the winning robot, but they sure earned their trophy.
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