Now You're Just Making Crap Up, Part II

A while back, I asked if any members of my generation had experienced the fabled scoreless youth sporting event, the kind that were supposed to have ruined us for the real world. I'll get to those momentarily.

To start, Google turned up this from The Western Center For Journalism (I don't know, either) whose motto is, "Informing And Equipping Americans Who Love Freedom." No, really. This obviously well-oiled news organization links to a piece from Glenn Beck's The Blaze (at this point, we'll pretend we buy every word--fragile egos, you see) about a youth football league in California fining teams $200 when winning by 35 points or more. The fine is overkill, sure, but as discussed in my previous post, a simple skill imbalance and the easily-flustered nature of children could easily produce a four-touchdown deficit. How many youth coaches would feel good about themselves nabbing another TD at that stage? What's to prove? It would be considered classless even in the NFL. And this still doesn't exactly fit the "scoreless" bill. But both articles run on the assumption that these sorts of things are becoming "more and more prevalent," while providing no evidence outside of this particular anecdote.

A similar presumption is made in this overlong piece in the Boston Globe, which at least has the courtesy to acknowledge the complicity of gutless parents.

So we're back to nothing on this. On the whole, no one I heard from was familiar with these leagues. A few seconded my memory of mercy rules, but nothing quite like the neutered, feelings-oriented farces that we've heard tell about. One aspect I hadn't thought of, though: memorabilia--the ribbons and trophies commemorating participation. Yes, the famous 'participation trophies,' shiny harbingers of millennials' presumed entitlement. There might be something there: years of receiving physical manifestations of the most basic commitment to a youth sports team. Didn't matter if you were a star or a benchwarmer. How is that not supposed to spoil children and warp their expectations of success?

To start, kids know what those baubles are. They see every other kid get one, regardless the merit, and they know. I was crap at most youth sports. I played badly and got frustrated. Or I got bored. Either way, I usually ended up following through because my parents wouldn't let me quit I was afraid of letting someone down. I learned to ride the bench. Sitting was a better fat kid sport, anyway. Except for that one year of youth basketball when all the other kids came up to my shoulder--I grabbed every rebound without having to jump. Those were good times.

In all other cases, though--baseball, football, two weeks of soccer--I knew I hadn't earned those ribbons, didn't deserve those trophies. They were reminders of a mandated charity of which I was the recipient. They didn't make me feel good and some part of me knew I couldn't expect that to go on forever. I won't say the trophies lit a fire in me, or prodded me to work harder for future trophies. But they did teach me which achievements meant something and which didn't. I'll take your trophy (refusing would be a dick move). But I know what matters to me. I still regard that as a pretty good lesson.

Finally, and slightly more interestingly, even if those trophies had imparted entitlement issues upon myself and my generation (and I'm sure they overinflated some poor kid's head), who was handing them out so recklessly? Did we ask for them? Possibly, after we saw other kids get trophies. Kids always crave what other kids have, even if they don't actually want it. 

However. Aren't these the occasions to explain to your stupid son or daughter that they hadn't earned a trophy? That they needed to work harder next time and maybe the trophy would be theirs? Or was it easier to throw a hunk of metal at the brat and get on with your day? The same goes for the presumptive scoreless games.

I've said before that I don't believe in generation blaming. It's entirely dependent upon a myopic single lane perspective, it creates needless division, and it gets us nowhere. But let's recognize our own faults, shall we? Take a serious look at what we're bringing to the table before we huff at somebody we don't know for being conceived thirty years before or after we were? Because we have real problems to contend with.

And there are no points for making shit up.