A regional branch of the American Youth Soccer Organization in Southern California hands out around 3,500 awards each season. But how many of those are actually going to winners? We have Most Valuable Player awards, Most Improved awards, Best Overall awards, and obviously winning awards, but is it really necessary to award kids for just showing up? It is time to eliminate all “participation” awards because they discourage motivation, disappoint players, and cost teams a lot of money that could be going elsewhere.

First of all, participation trophies discourage motivation and encourage settling for mediocrity. “I’m sorry I’m not sorry for believing that everything in life should be earned and I’m not about to raise two boys to be men by making them believe they are entitled to earn something just because they tried their best...sometimes your best is not enough, and that should drive you to want to do better...not cry and whine until someone gives you something to shut you up and keep you happy,” said NFL linebacker James Harrison on Instagram after his two sons, 6 and 8, received participation awards (Schilken 1). Harrison does make some very valid points in this Instagram caption. We should not be teaching young kids that just because they showed up and played well, they deserve a grand trophy. Sure, if the kid is upset about losing, the parent can take them out for ice cream after the game. But there is no reason for us to teach kids that they will get a trophy whether or not they win. This tells them that they do not need to get any better because they will be awarded anyway. Also, by telling a kid, “good job” when they are only mediocre, we are giving them false ideals and therefore causing them to settle for mediocre because that is what they were told was “good”. We need to acknowledge kids and encourage them to get better, but if we allow them to confuse “good” with “okay”, they will never learn what it means to improve.

Secondly, participation awards are unfair and they disappoint winners. There is no doubt that awards and trophies have incredible benefits on kids involved in not only sports, but all extracurricular activities. Kids love getting trophies, but if we constantly give them out, especially when the kid loses, awards will become less and less rare, and young athletes will be less excited to get them. When a kid wins and then sees that everyone gets a trophy, they will think that they put effort in when they didn’t need to in the first place. “Carol Dweck, a psychology professor at Stanford University, found that kids respond positively to praise; they enjoy hearing that they’re talented, smart and so on. But after such praise of their innate abilities, they collapse at the first experience of difficulty. Demoralized by their failure, they say they’d rather cheat than risk failing again” (Meryman 1). Competition and awards are beneficial in motivating kids to do better, but nonstop recognition causes kids to be too fixated on their mistakes and they will be way too focused on winning, causing them to turn to cheating when they are frustrated by their failures. Encouragement plus excitement equals excellence, but nonstop recognition plus pressure to win adds up to stress and cockiness. Of course, the game is indeed about having fun, but we are lying if we say that it’s not fun to win. Eliminating participation awards is not telling them that winning is the only option, we are simply saying that they will not be awarded for merely showing up. We wouldn’t award a computer for not shutting down randomly, so we shouldn’t be awarding kids for just getting to the games. If they put all their effort in and still don't win, we have to hope that they had fun and that they will be motivated to try even harder next time. After all, there are no participation awards at work, and it is unfair to prepare kids for the wrong futures. Life isn’t fair, and we need to be teaching that to kids, not wasting our energy trying to make that statement false.

Finally, participation awards are costing youth sports teams large amounts of money that could be going elsewhere. “Nationally, A.Y.S.O. local branches typically spend as much as 12 percent of their yearly budgets on trophies” (Merryman 1). If the American Youth Soccer Organization is spending 12 percent of their budgets on trophies, it is likely that most youth sport organizations are also spending money on unnecessary trophies. If we stopped giving out participation awards, there would be plenty of leftover money that could go towards better coaches, equipment, playing fields, and cheaper enrollment fees. This would allow for more kids to become active because they could afford it, and they would have much higher quality experiences. “By age 4 or 5, children aren’t fooled by all the trophies. They are surprisingly accurate in identifying who excels and who struggles. Those who are outperformed know it and give up, while those who do well feel cheated when they aren’t recognized for their accomplishments. They, too, may give up” (Merryman 1). If kids already know that the participation awards are “loser trophies”, then it makes no sense for us to spend all this extra money on “pity awards”.

In conclusion, teams are spending extra money on trophies that have no benefits and are only having negative effects on young athletes. If we want today's kids to grow up as humble leaders, we have to make changes, and terminating participation awards may be a big one. As Ashley Merryman puts it, “This school year, let’s fight for a kid’s right to lose.”