StevePerryHair wrote:Ehwmatt wrote:StevePerryHair wrote:Ehwmatt wrote:StevePerryHair wrote:Ehwmatt wrote:parfait wrote:The thing that's been keeping me going is my competitive drive. I hate not being number 1. The kids that buckle under the pressure; too bad for them. The kids that don't however, is a lot better equiped later in life. You can't have winners, and not expect to have losers.
You have hit on a crucial point: You are NOT permitted to win in America in good conscience any more! Whether it is the 9-12 year old little league baseball cancelling All Star Games because they don't want kids to feel left out, a varsity high school sport that is "no cut" because they don't want to hurt kids' feelings, a private middle school going to a non-grading system because they don't want to make the impression that some kids are "smarter" than others, or whether it is a successful businessman who has made the most of his skill and makes a lot of money, you are demonized regardless.
Kids today get coddled... really. Even just 15 years ago when I was that age, it wasn't like that. We had all star games, we had cuts, if you sucked you didn't play unless people got hurt, we had grades, we had published honor rolls etc. Now we don't want to hurt anyone's feelings, so we don't push any one and they never learn to cope with pressure til it's too late.
There's a quickly growing majority in this country now that HATES success at any stage of the game. They don't want any one to be able to distinguish him or herself from her peers through natural talent, hard work, and ambition.
Those are set up with a tryout and you ARE competing and it has more meaning to me. My kids were never star athletes and I have FOUGHT with the coaches in the recreation league sports who just want to sit a kid on a bench more than half the game because they aren't deemed "good enough". How will they ever become good enough? They all get trophies at the tend, and they all take pride in being part of a team. I don't see how that is a bad thing. The kids who are the stars, get their recognition plenty.
How do they get better? The same way the stars got better... by investing the extra time outside the strictures of the team practice/game. I'm sure you've heard the story of Michael Jordan being cut from his team before. You don't get better just skating by doing the bare minimum. Put in the hours off the game court, improve, and any coach worth his salt will foster that development. Nobody is entitled to just enter the game or get playing time. That's exactly the kinda mentality that has gotten us to where we are.
Not every kid has a dad who can take them out to the yard everyday and turn them into a machine on the field. Some only have those practices. And it's the only way they can be part of any kind of sports team. I am talking city recreation league sports. They ARE made for every kid. And if you don't like that for your kid, than I suggest when you have them, find out where the competive leagues are, because they DO exist, and enroll them. City rec leagues were not created to make Michael Jordans.
Being part of the sports team is one thing, having all star games cancelled and getting playing time by virtue of making a non-cut team are whole other animals.
I firmly believe in merit-based awards at EVERY stage of life. I also firmly believe in learning to handle pressure, losing, and failure at the earliest possible stage of life.
That's easy for an athlete to say. When you are the kid who is always beaten down and made fun of by team mates and your self esteem goes to a low you carry to adulthood, then you might think different. That's not me though for the record
I didnt do athletics. But I danced. So yes, maybe parents should be finding physical activities that suit their children, but some kids are good at nothing
And they need excercise too. Remember, childhood obesity?? No one lets their kids ride bikes for hours alone anymore. They have to find places for them to excercise. And not EVERY kid can be a star player, but they still deserve to feel included.
I fully accept the possibility that some kids, no matter how much they try, will not become even decent athletes at ANY sport. I taught tennis for years in high school, trust me, I saw how uncoordinated some people are
There are other areas they can apply themselves in to succeed. I never hear anybody advocating for the "dumb jock" to be included on the honor roll along with the pocket protector crowd or to get his own Science Fair award even though his project sucked
The trouble is, the old adage that athletics build character is fast becoming an anachronism if no one can ever learn the hard, character-building and resolve-building lessons of (1) losing with class; (2) failure; (3) getting cut from the team; (4) blowing the game for the team (and redeeming yourself); (5) feeling incredibly overhwhelming pressure etc. and realize the incredible euphoria of (1) working hard; (2) improving (even if it means improving from terrible to merely sucky ... it's an accomplishment); (3) getting recognition through awards/press if you get good enough; (4) winning the game for the team at the last second or as the last match on court etc.
The thing is Lynn, it's not necessarily "easy." I I was pretty good in the 10 and under and 12 and under age groups when I was little, but then I got into guitar and gaming and got really lazy. I'd show up and lose to kids routinely. I was bad, really bad. Then, I just started working my ass off when I hit 15. I'd do the stuff the kids that were beating me were doing
and then I'd hit the gym for 2 hours after that, go home and do homework when those kids were already done and watching TV for the night. I showed up at this tournament a month later and steamrolled two guys who had beaten me badly just two months before and went on a tear that summer. I kept improving from then through college.
I had a pretty good athletic career in my chosen sport, but the most important part wasn't how good I was or the awards I did manage to win or whatever... it was learning to deal with the failure of losing (even after I got decent), learning to accept the possibility that yes, I became a pretty good player but there was always gonna be tons of people better than me, and learning to take pride in what I was doing. One of the best things to happen to me happened my junior year, when I expected to be one of the top three players in the conference and compete for the conference berth in the NCAA singles tourney, was a guy transferred into my conference from Wake Forest who was absolutely incredible and went on to win NCAAs that year. I worked my ass off to get better, probably harder than I would have had he not, got a lot better... and then he still absolutely demolished me!
He was just in another class. I had nothing on him. But see, the road to that demolishing made it all worth it. It's the means, not the end. Maybe the kid who endures riding the pine for a few years or even some teasing from teammates uses that as the means to bust his ass and become the next managing partner at a law firm or neurosurgeon at the Cleveland Clinic.
To suggest the possibility that anyone would carry a bad team experience into adulthood just bespeaks how weak and unresilient we've become in society. When you coddle kids in certain ways, they know deep down that they're being babied and aren't learning anything. They'll resent it later, too. My parents never put any pressure on me to win or anything like that and they always told me they were proud of me win or lose, but they certainly weren't above telling me to can it when I was getting upset over something that was my own fault (like not practicing for 2 years and losing to all kinds of people) or telling me how to man up instead of letting me whine when I had problems my freshman year of HS with my coach who refused to play me ahead of seniors I beat in the singles lineup. God do I appreciate that kinda stuff, looking back. When my dad got pissed at me, he had
very good reason to do so... because it was good for me (what a concept!).
I've now made this about sports more than I ever wanted to, but things like the baseball story I posted are just such a revealing microcosm of the twin problems of not wanting to distinguish anybody and demonizing those who work hard and succeed that are killing this country.
