Friday, September 6, 2013

Trophies for Everyone


The Ontario Soccer Association has decided to do away with scorekeeping and standings in youth soccer.  To take things even further in this “political correctness” and “every kid is a winner,” the Midlake, Ontario Soccer Association has decided to completely remove the ball from youth soccer games and practices.  According to Helen Dabney-Coyle, a spokesperson for the Association, “By removing the ball, it’s absolutely impossible to say ‘this team won’ and ‘this team lost’ or ‘this child is better at soccer than that child.’”  They want children to learn that sports is not about competition, rather about using your imagination.  If you imagine that you’re good at soccer, then you are. 

This has taken the “everyone that competes will get a trophy” to the next level.  When I was growing up, I was not good at sports, so I stuck with things that I was good at, academics and music.  My brother, on the other hand, has always been very athletic.  The fact that I lost at every athletic event I tried to compete in didn’t harm me, or make me fragile.  Instead, it taught me to work towards the things I am good at and to realize that not everyone is good at everything. 

Society as a whole is already falling into a trap I like to refer to as the spoiled brat syndrome.  I see it in college right now.  These new incoming freshman feel entitled, they think that they’re owed something.  We saw it with the Occupy Wall Street crowd; the people in big corporations should give their money to people who don’t make as much.  Why?  Because they think that’s the right thing to do.  In reality, the right thing to do is get up, get an education and a degree in something that matters, like Science, Engineering, or Math, versus a degree in something that really doesn’t have a use like Women’s Studies or LGBT Studies. I'm not saying that these degrees don’t have a use, but they should be a second degree not a first degree.  What are you actually going to be able to do with one of those obscure degrees if you haven’t established credibility in the workplace yet?

Kids need to realize that they will succeed at some things and fail at others.  Parents need to quit protecting and sheltering their children so much that they develop a false sense of entitlement; instead they should teach them how the real world actually works.  What this group in Canada is essentially saying is that if I dream that I’m good at math then I really am, when in reality I have a 65%.  What’s going to happen next?  Someone believes that they’re a good doctor, so therefore they start practicing medicine?  What are they going to tell the medical board?  You should give me my medical license because I believe I’m a good doctor and disregard the fact that I failed medical school? 

Society needs to wake up and look at what is going on around it.  It’s already infecting our college systems, and the entry-level job positions post college.  Just wait until it moves its way on up in to management. 


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