I know from experience that participation trophies can be incredibly frustrating. When I was in winter track sophomore year, the 12 kids out of the 30 who were on the team went to the state relays and won. However, every single kid on the team, even the ones who didn’t even show up for practice got a plaque saying that they were state champions even though they didn’t do much of anything. I know this isn’t exactly a participation trophy in the traditional sense but it enforces the idea that you can show up (or not show up just sign up), do nothing and still get the same reward that the people who worked their butts off did. This isn’t even in youth sports, it was in high school. I think this does a terrible job of showing kids, even teenagers what the true meaning and value of sports is. Rather than enforcing the ideas of self- improvement, teamwork, and trying your hardest, it basically gives kids the idea that all you have to do is sign up to win a state championship.While I think the meaning of sports for me has always been about having fun, self- improvement, and overall just trying my hardest, I think for many it has turned into getting rewarded for something to feel good about themselves. What is so detrimental about this is that when kids are awarded for just showing up, they often lose their motivation to try as hard as they can, to win, and to improve. The meaning and purpose that youth sports once had, and the values they instilled in children have now given way to little plastic trophies.

        While I think instilling kids with confidence and getting them to try new things despite their abilities is imperative, participation trophies aren’t the best way to go about it. Confidence and having faith in yourself are incredibly important, however that confidence should come from something genuine, by truly succeeding. Participation trophies give you a false sense of confidence rather than a real one. Confidence attained from working hard and getting better at something is far more powerful and more helpful than the latter. An effective way to do this is by giving out trophies for things other than just being a participant. I’m not just saying that only the winners or the top three should get rewarded, but there should also be rewards given to other things, such as most cooperative, most helpful, most improved, hardest worker, etc. This way the core meaning and the reasons kids should be participating in team sports isn’t being changed, but they are also getting rewarded. These awards encourage kids to go above and beyond merely participating and make them want to work harder. What’s great about this is success isn’t defined by winning, instead it is defined by other criteria such as teamwork and personal improvement, both of which are incredibly important. No matter what the skill level of the athlete, they can realistically strive to attain these goals because they are about personal growth. This also bring the original and beneficial meaning and purpose of youth sports back into the equation

        The above technique has proven success in a baseball league in Texas. In small town in Texas Mentioned in Dallas News article titled “Do we  Need Participation Trophies”, the baseball league mentioned in the article eliminated participation trophies which were given out at the end of seasons, and instead the teams within the league started giving out awards to players at the end of the games which occurred on a weekly basis. These awards included some of the ones which were listed above such as “most improved, hardest worker, and best team player”. This proved to be a huge success within the league, and there were few complaints from parents. Furthermore, the coaches found that their athletes were working harder during the practices leading up to the games because they wanted to get one of the awards. As a result, they saw much more improvement in the players over the course of a season than in years past.

Another alternative to participation trophies is just to not give them. As outlined in  Ashley Merryman’s New York Times article “Losing is Good for You” She suggests that not giving kids trophies at all might be the best alternative to participation trophies.  In one of the opening paragraphs she states “awards can be powerful motivators, but non- stop recognition doesn’t inspire children to succeed, instead it can cause them to underachieve. Because of this, Merryman warns parents and sports league organizers; “Don’t underestimate the power of not getting anything”. Like almost everything in life, participation awards are subject to the law of diminishing returns; the more you reward a child, the less that trophy has meaning. However, if a kid doesn’t get a trophy the first year he is trying a sport, and then the next year he works extra hard and his team wins, and he makes huge improvements, and THEN he receives a trophy, that trophy or award will mean much more to him because to him. This increased sense of meaning is due to the fact that he actually had to work for the trophy, and he earned it. It is something that he can be proud of. Furthermore, by doing this, the meaning and purpose of playing sports is reverted back to learning about and being rewarded for teamwork, effort, and improvement.

The final alternatives to participation trophies were also discussed by Ashley Merryman, but this time it was part of an interview conducted by KJ Dell’Antonia as part of her article for the New York Times titled “ Give Children a Chance to Win, and Lose”. In this article Merryman discusses possible things to give kids beside trophies. She suggests “Maybe a soccer ball to play with for a soccer league, a patch for a sports bag, or zipper pulls with the team or league name on it”. This way, kids are still getting something, but it’s not quite as ridiculous as an award that will just sit on a shelf. They are stuff kids can use, like playing around with a soccer ball, or helping them pull up their jacket. Yes, they are still getting things, but it’s not so blatantly an award. Furthermore, this way the meaning of sports isn’t lost. If anything things such as a soccer ball encourage kids to keep practicing and improving outside of the season for years to come.

        All in all, participation trophies are a little more than a waste of space. They don’t represent hard work, or talent, they represent the minimal work needed. Because of this, they have the ability to alter the meaning of sports in the worst way. Rather than making sports about just getting a trophy, they become about just doing something to get a trophy to put on a shelf. However, this is not to say you shouldn’t reward kids in youth sports. They key to this dilemma is to start rewarding kids for things that actually matter such as teamwork, work ethic, and improvement. If a league does decide to give something out to everyone who participated. Its shouldn’t be a plastic rewards for nothing but participation, but rather something the kid can use like a soccer ball or a tshirt.