Today in youth sports, kids do not have to accomplish much to receive a trophy. Every kid is rewarded the same trophy, whether your team goes undefeated and wins the league, or your team comes in dead last and does not win a single game. Consequently, kids that do not even show up at all still receive a “participation” trophy. People often refer to this as the trophy culture, and it is still prevalent in today’s youth sports. It’s as easy as this: sign up, and you are guaranteed a trophy. This is causing a culture shift in America, where all we produce is nothing but imaginative winners. If everyone gets rewarded the same prize regardless of effort and performance, what’s the point of competing and working hard; the two most important qualities taught by sports?

Being a huge sports fan, this kind of lazy culture has to change if we want our kids to learn to strive for greatness instead of being satisfied with losing in life. A college education and the workplace are not always similar to playing sports, but you can learn as many critical lessons by playing sports as you can in school, and in the real world. Sports can also teach you certain lessons that no school can teach you. I have always been against this trophy culture, because I do not think you should receive a trophy just for showing up; instead, I believe you should be rewarded a trophy for putting in hard work and preparation to earn that trophy. If we want kids to succeed, we cannot pretend and hide it when they fail, and we cannot reward them for failing. I believe you should not get trophies for participating; you should get trophies for competing and outperforming your opponent. Society must overthrow this culture that praises slothfulness and non-competitiveness. 

The message that participation trophies are sending kids is that all you have to do to be rewarded is to just attend practices and games. It is causing problems in youth sports but more importantly it is causing problems in youth life development. 

Brian Sanders is the president and CEO of i9 sports, the overhead of over a thousand youth sport leagues across the United States. Brian is a huge supporter of participation trophies and in his leagues if you win the league you receive a champion trophy, and for the kids who are not champions they all receive all-star trophies, however, both trophies are the exact same size just different engravings. In an interview on HBO’s show “Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel,” Brian Sanders was asked: why is it necessary to call them all-stars? Brian answered, “It is to make them feel special, and to help them understand that by participating they are apart of the team by completing the season they are a star. We want to make every child feel special.” (Trophy Nation) These kinds of trophies are symbols of artificial success and are hurting younger generations. It is setting the bar for kids very low and causing them to develop attitudes where they are complacent with losing.

Participation trophies give kids the mindset that no matter how they performed, it was good enough to be receive a trophy, and that their mere presence was regarded enough for a distinguished honor. For the kids who received a trophy and did not win, the message it is sending is that there’s no need to improve and train harder, and practice more because they got the same trophy as the team that did work harder and practiced more. 

This is not how life and the real world works; if we just show up to work and are constantly lackadaisical in our efforts, we will no longer have a job and these kids need to learn that lesson. In life it is okay to lose, but you need to win more than you lose to be successful. These days, everyone thinks they should get a job, everyone believes they deserve a great job, but not everyone realizes the amount of work you need to get that great job. The trophy nation is doing nothing but encouraging this type of entitlement. Jeff Walz, who is the head coach of the Louisville women’s basketball team, went on a rant about participation trophies after his team showed poor effort in a big game at home. In the post-game interview, Walz states: “And I’m trying to explain to our kids, like ‘Hey, I’m trying to prepare you for the real world, because when you go to get a job, there’s competition, and what are you going to do to stand out?” (Youtube.com) Mr. Walz brings up an excellent point that I believe every kid should hear. There is going to be competition at almost everything you do in life, whether it’s school, sports, and jobs. In all these aspects of life you have to do something to separate yourself from the rest of the pack and give people a reason to take a chance on you. Jeff Walz was not the only person who used his platform to express his thoughts on the trophy culture.

One professional athlete took it to the next level when he found out his sons received participation trophies. James Harrison is a very respected pro bowl linebacker for the Pittsburgh Steelers, and when his two sons came home with participation trophies, he promptly returned them. Harrison showed everyone his thoughts on the matter when he posted an Instagram photo with a long caption containing his opinions towards participation trophies. When he was explaining the reasoning behind his statements, he said he’s of course proud of his sons, and will always been there to cheer them on, but wants them “to EARN a real trophy.” (Ed Morrissey) If you knew James Harrison’s road to where he is now, you would understand his reasoning. Harrison was a walk-on at Kent State; right when he got to college nothing was handed to him. Then he went and entered the NFL draft, not a single team took a chance on James and he went undrafted. He finally got a chance by the Ravens, but was cut by the team shortly after. Now he is a 2-time super bowl winner and was the NFL defensive player of the year in 2008. Harrison was not rewarded for just showing up and participating, he had to work extremely hard to be where he is now and want to teach his sons the same lessons he was taught so they can be successful men like their father. There needs to be more fathers like James Harrison if we want to break this trophy culture, or else children will learn too late what it really takes to be successful.

There have to be countless hours of time and preparation to get a great job. Now I realize that the goal is to win, but not every sport will lead you to a career in that sport. If you do not try in school and do not work hard to make good grades, you will not graduate and receive a degree. This is why we need to teach these kids before it is too late and they have psychological disadvantages concerning their effort and their performance. Many researchers have said that too much and too constant praise creates unmotivated children, but the problem is that parents are not listening to it.

Parents are arguably the biggest part of the problem. Every parent wants his or her child to be happy. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that, but at a certain points, parents cannot be afraid of having their child be unhappy. Some parents want their kids to be winners no matter what happens, they do not want their kids or the other kids who did not win to get their feelings hurt. They have become too protective with their own children, putting a slight burden on their development. Parents are among the biggest culprits, along with teachers, when it comes to dispensing kids with a misguided sense of self-appreciation. According to the article “How Participation Trophies are Making Our Kids Soft”, “One Los Angeles youth soccer league doesn't even keep score, and hands out participation trophies to every child whose name is on the roster.” (Mensjournal.com) The reason this league does this is because all the parents supported it, even though the league commissioner tried to stop it. When the league attempted to stop giving out trophies for every kid even if they came in 3th place or 10th place, the parents literally went out and bought their own trophies for their kids that did not finish at the top, just so they had the same satisfaction as the champions. In college, parents cannot just go out and buy a degree for their child to make them feel as special as the kids who worked hard and earned their degrees. Children cannot depend on parents to buy their rewards to fit in with the people who deserved the reward. There’s clearly a culture change in youth sports, and much of that is consequently due to the characteristics of the millennial generation. 

The millennial generation has been viewed to have higher expectations than the generations before them, and while employers realize that they are the future workers, they have concerns with their ability to adapt in the work place. Millennials seem to have a remarkably strong sense of entitlement, and many corporate employers say they demand too much. According to the article “The 'Trophy Kids' Go to Work”, “More than 85% of hiring managers and human-resource executives said they feel that millennials have a stronger sense of entitlement than older workers, according to a survey by CareerBuilder.com.” (The Wall Street Journal) This mean that managers have become accustomed to the way the millennial generation is, and have to adapt to them or try and make the millennial as a whole adapt to their work lifestyles, which has become a significant challenge. This statement supports the claim that there is a culture change in America and the millennial generation is playing a huge part in it.

Carol Dweck, a researcher at Stanford, detailed her thoughts about the issue in a New York Times article labeled: “Too Much Praise is No Good for Toddlers." Dweck studied children’s confrontation and flexibility for nearly 45 years, and has come to a conclusion that too much praise at a young age will result in less resilient children. Dweck states: "Parents should take away the fact that they are not giving their children a gift when they tell them how brilliant and talented they are."(Jenny Anderson) This does not mean that Dweck is against praising children completely, but rather she suggests paying more attention to preparing them for challenges and the ability to overcome adversity, rather than constant praise. Maybe if we teach those who lost to congratulate those who win, we could help build the motivation and preparation needed to face actual real life challenges 

Constant and high praise actually hurts kids with low self-esteem even though the usually need it the most. Janice Wood is a long-time editor and writer, and has published an article called: “Inflated Praise Can Harm Kids With Low Self-Esteem.” In this article she states: “Researchers found that while children with high self-esteem seem to thrive with inflated praise, those with low self-esteem actually shrink from new challenges when adults go overboard on praising them.” (Psychcentral.com) She is describing that the children with low self-esteem who receive inflated praise are always used to it, but when they face a challenge, they depend on inflated praise from their parents since they do not have much confidence in themselves. The one industry that is thriving off this phenomenon is the trophy manufacturing business.

Thanks to all the leagues across the United States who hand out trophies to every participant, the trophy business is booming. There is even a summer program in Maryland that hands out trophies and awards every day of the summer. One of the American Youth Soccer Organization leagues in California gives away nearly 3,500 trophies each season. All these trophies and awards start to add up and increase the budget. According to Ashley Merryman of the New York Times, “Nationally, A.Y.S.O. local branches typically spend as much as 12 percent of their yearly budgets on trophies. The trophy and award sales are now an estimated $3 billion-a-year industry in the United States and Canada.” (Losing Is Good for You) Those stats are very surprising; out of all the industries that rake in $3 billion in sales each year, I would not have guessed that the trophy business would be one of them. 

I am not completely against participation trophies; I think participation trophies are necessary until the age range between 8-10 years old. I understand the sight of seeing your own children carrying a trophy smiling from ear to ear is unbeatable. When I was ayoung boy, I participated in sports such as soccer, basketball, and baseball, and they gave out trophies to every kid no matter how bad their team was. I would put all my trophies on my shelf and after several years of playing those sports my shelf was getting pretty full of trophies and I felt that I accomplished a lot. By the time I was in middle school I started to look at my shelf and realize that they were all participation trophies. I stored them away and started competing in leagues where only the championship teams received trophies. I started playing travel baseball and soccer and I did not win much at first, but I would watch the champions celebrate and raise their trophy and realized how happy those kids were and how awesome it would feel to be apart of that. It provided me the motivation to work harder and achieve my goals: a feeling much more rewarding than merely participating.

Eventually I started to win prestigious big trophies and those trophies made me 100 times more happy than receiving several participation trophies. It would also motivate me to work harder so I could one-day experience that feeling of winning a championship. That’s the same attitude these kids growing up need to have in sports, but more importantly in life. There is no better feeling than being rewarded for all that hard work you put in, and that is the same way I feel towards school and in my job. When your co-worker receives a raise or a promotion, it should motivate you to work even harder, just as if your classmate receives a perfect score on a test, it should motivate you to study harder. These are all lessons in life that participation trophies are hindering.

The message that participation trophies are sending kids is that all you have to do to be rewarded is to just attend practices and games. It is causing problems in youth sports but more importantly it is causing problems in youth life development. The longer we allow this trophy culture to take place, the more each generation will become more demanding and entitled.
