SOCCER IN THE BLUEGRASS COMMENTARY
A lot has been made recently of the supposed evils of the participation trophy.
It’s a trophy for losers, some say. If everyone gets a trophy for just showing up, what does that teach our children? How will they succeed later in life in the cold, cruel world if we coddle them with praise for losing?
Louisville women’s basketball Coach Jeff Walz most recently delivered an epic rant after a loss about how our society and today’s players have grown soft and participation trophies are a key indicator as to why in his opinion. Washington State football Coach Mike Leach, once on staff at Kentucky, has expressed similar sentiments.
As a board member of an organization that hands out trophies to everyone under 10, I have a different perspective.
To win, you must first show up.
Fear of failure
One of the biggest youth sports issues we have today is that parents don’t want their kids to fail. And worse, instead of letting them fail and learn from those mistakes, they scapegoat coaches, referees and organizations.
Even in leagues where everyone gets a trophy, there is failure week in and week out. Half the teams win, half the teams lose. Maybe some tie. But each week there are lessons to be learned by the players, coaches and parents.
Most parents don’t sign their young children up for sports so they can learn to win. They sign them up to keep them active and to learn a sport that they might have played or loved, so that one day the children might love it too.
And winning isn’t the primary lesson sports has to offer. Sports are about learning new skills. Sports are about working together to achieve a common goal. Sports are about making friends. And, perhaps most importantly, sports are about perseverance. Learning how to deal with failure and channel that energy to become a better player and person.
I interviewed the Ueland family last fall for a story I did for the Herald-Leader on Thomas Ueland, who is a sophomore at Notre Dame, one of the top men’s program’s in the country. All five Ueland children play or played soccer. The dad, Frederick Ueland, and his family played soccer. The practice field at Fred Ueland’s alma mater Stanford is named Ueland Field.
He had a great perspective on what sports are about and what he looks for in coach as his twin daughters played for Henry Clay that night.
“You’ve got people who focus on performance. And you’ve got people who focus on character. The trick is to balance the two. What we watch tonight. There will be a result. Someone will win. Someone will lose. It’s not very important, honestly. It’s a high school match. But how the kids behave, how they interact, how they grow — that matters.”
Winning in youth sports is arbitrary
How significant is a U10 or a U8 game? How indicative is it of your child’s future greatness?
I’ve formed dozens of U10 soccer teams over the last few years. How do we know which teams will be great and which teams will struggle?
As each season progresses, one or two teams in each division will stand out. Sometimes they will be juggernauts. Sometimes, they’ll just be a team that has breaks go their way. But in each, there is one commonality: the team with one or two more older players than the rest, or with one or two more really aggressive players will win most of their games.
When I was six years old, my baseball team lost every game. Every. Stinking. Game. We had a kid wander up on our practice the next season, toss a few balls to my dad and bend the wedding ring in his glove. We won the playoffs that year.
Coaching matters. But coaching doesn’t matter nearly as much as having one or two aggressive, more mature kids. I could take two kids off an undefeated 11 player team and switch them with two kids on a winless team and greatly transform their fortunes. I could probably only take one.
That’s how arbitrary winning is in U10 and younger. If one child can be the difference between a winning team and a losing team, why would a first place U10 trophy be of any significance?
It’s not.
Santa Claus and the promise of potential
If you’re a Christian, think about how old you were when you stopped believing in Santa Claus. How old were your children, when they started asking and doubting? I’m guessing about 9 years old, right? Why is that? How long did you try to keep up appearances?
How long did you tell your children they could be anything they wanted to be when they grew up? When did reality set in? Probably much later, right?
My point: For children younger than 10, all things are possible. From their athletic potential to their belief in a jolly old elf who delivers toys around the world one night out of the year.
And encouragement matters.
Showing up is a big deal.
In order to grow our sport, we must attract and retain players. We must keep children and families coming back. The larger the player pool is, the larger the talent pool will be as they get older. It means a more fun environment and better competition. It means better soccer.
That’s why I do what I do: to keep kids playing. If they learn to love the sport first, they’ll be good at it. If they’re good at it, their competitive fire will kick in when the games matter more.
No Division I athlete has played for a “participation trophy” in nearly a decade. Since middle school, they’ve learned they’ll go home empty handed if they don’t play for each other and win.
But the good coaches understand why they are involved in the sport. Winning is a result of doing things the right way. It is the result of caring about their players and their players’ development. Winning is a result of their efforts, not the end-all, be-all.
No child under 10 has reached their athletic potential. The daisy pickers and cloud watchers might one day be better players than the kids getting you 10 goals a game at age 7.
So, when a child who barely understands the game or why they are dragged out of bed to play each Saturday gets a shiny trophy at the end of the season, it’s a big moment.
Win or lose, their efforts have been appreciated. It is more fun to get a trophy and hear praise and applause at the end of a season than it is to walk off the field after a tough loss in the last game.
When their parents ask them if they want to play again, that one last positive moment might help a few kids say ‘yes.’
Do you, as a parent, want to give up on that at such a young age? Do you want them to be discouraged about results that hold absolutely no significance to their lives 10 years down the road?
Of course not.
You want to do all you can to encourage them and keep them playing for as long as you can, because you know their childhood is fleeting and your window is now.
