James Harrison Says "EARN a Trophy" - And I Agree

Steelers' football player, James Harrison, posted on Instagram that he was sending his sons' sports "participation" trophies back - they get no trophy for just showing up and its sent the internet all a-buzz.  Was he right, was he wrong, is this a great example of fatherly lessons or bad parenting?

James Harrison's Instagram post of sons' sports trophies

Here's my 2 cents: I have to agree - everyone shouldn't get a trophy - aren't these for the winners?  It reminds me of a Tae Kwan Do belt test where my son earned a patch for best kicks in the class and the mother next to me muttered something about "he's the only one? only one kid gets a patch?" Yes, ma'am - it's best in the class, you can't have a bunch of those.  From them on, my son worked hard b/c he wanted to earn that again and knew there was only one to be earned.

Now, he's a swimmer. At the end of the summer season, his team gives out a trophy for the swimmer who has earned the most points in the season. There is only one and everyone knows you have to work hard all summer to earn this trophy.  And it doesn't even matter what age you are - the team ranges from 6 to 18 years old and there is one prize for the boys and one for the girl.  Does this discourage my son or the other kids? No. It gives him a goal, something to aim for.  He knows he cannot slack off or he may fall out of the running for the trophy.  His motivation would be different if he knew they were all going to get the same trophy.  And another thing - it makes each person recognize the contributions and hardwork of their team mates. They cheer for the guy and girl who win this trophy and congratulate them for their efforts during the season.  Being able to say "congratulations" to someone else, having the humility to appreciate someone else's achievements over your own, is as important (maybe more) than patting your own self on the back.

We're letting the kids off too easy by not ever allowing them to lose or know the feeling off loss.  We're also doing them a dis-service by not teaching them how to take a loss.  Yes, that's why I don't even let my kids beat me in anything - if they win (and they often do) they know it was a true, honest win. If they lose, they know they've got to get their game together to beat their old mom.

There's nothing wrong with losing and learning to deal with it.  In life, we will not always win.  We won't always get the solo or into our first choice college or the job we want. We will face losses and coming in second or third or seventy-fifth. Part of life is learning how to cope, how to dust ourselves off, figure out what went wrong, make some corrections, lean on our faith that we'll "win" one day, and try again.

So if this becomes a movement, I'm all in.  And can we add getting rid of all those daggone snacks, too!?

What do you think of the ribbons & trophies for participation?  

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What Mother Came Up With Post-Sports Game Snacks?

Team snacks. Ugh. The thorn in the side of every kid sports team parent, or at least this one.  I was so relieved to somehow - perhaps fate, sports-gods, luck - slip by mostly unscathed from this modern-family gauntlet of kid activity requirements.  Then, last week after Nat’s basketball game she came over with juicebox and a bag of cookies in hand.  “Where did you get that?” I asked as if she was carrying a live virus.  Suzy’s mom brought snacks for everybody. Ugh! Are we starting a snack list, are we going to have to switch teams?

Who came up with this?  Why, why do kids need a snack after an hour sports activity? And why do we have to stay together to eat it, since the game is over, can’t we all just go home (or more likely, to the next kid sport activity)? And why, why do we have to share in this responsibility of feeding the kids, why can’t every mom just bring their own kid a snack?  Now, I have to be conscious of your gluten-free, no sugar, no salt, no peanut, no soy-based, no red food coloring, organic only, locally raised food requirements.  I can barely shove four water bottles, oranges and granola bars in a bag for my own kids and now you want me to consider all these other kids, too? Who, I want to know, came up with this?

Sports Lessons for Life

"I think I made the HighPoint for the team this season," my son said to me the day before the swim team awards picnic.

Jay started swimming on a team because he saw other kids practicing with a team coach while he was still learning to blow bubbles. He watched them and told me he wanted to do what they were doing.  "Then you've got to put your face in the water. All the way in the water," I told him.

And he eventually did get over his fear of submerging his face and the rest of his body into 4 feet of water, because he wanted to do what the other kids were doing.  Once he learned to swim across the length of the pool, he told me he was ready to join a team.  I had no idea what joining a swim team or being a competitive swimmer entailed, other than the few tales of water-obsessed parents, but they didn't sound any crazier than the soccer-moms and basketball-dads that I already knew.  Just a different and wetter crazy, but on the same level.

That was four years ago and Jay has been swimming ever since.  He's won, tied, come in last, been disqualified, cheered, cried, set goals, tried harder, tried again.  He's learned to take pride in his accomplishments and set new goals to do even better. He encourages his team-mates and celebrates their wins or commiserates over their losses. He's pulled his sister into swimming with him and encourages her.  He knows when he's been goofing off and when he's really put in some work.  He appreciates the coaches who invest their efforts and is learning (still learning) not to waste their time by not putting in his own hard work.  He's learned so much more than just how to properly churn his arms and kick his legs to execute the perfect butterfly.

And this year, he did win that High Point award - the swimmer who has earned the most wins and points for his team this season.  And he's learned to be proud, yet still humble.

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Who Really Understands the Winter Olympics?

Are you watching the Winter Olympics?  Did you watch the Summer? I bet more of you watched the Summer. Because they are more popular.  (Google that, it’s true.)  And I’m going to tell you why.

Because the Summer Olympics includes sports that the normal person can identify and describe.  Most of the competitions are even something the non-Olympian person has done.  Running, jumping, swimming, kayaking, horseback riding, tennis, basketball, gymnastics, riding a bike.  All that stuff? We get that. We know what it looks like. If we really really wanted to, we could find a place to go try it in our own hometown, right now.

Not so much with the Winter Olympics. Sure, I’ve been skiing once or twice (the feeling of the “whoosh” down the hill is great, but it’s really a little too cold for me) and I know folks who snowboard.  I took ice skating lessons in college (you’ve got to get those Electives in) and I know some folks who play ice hockey.  And that’s about where it ends for the normal sports.

Come on, the rest of the Winter Olympics feel like the committee said, “Well, everything has to involve snow or ice, and we’ve got to fill up two weeks of TV time. What else can we do?”  This is what that meeting sounded like:

Let’s have some folks ski up a mountain and shoot some targets. How about if we stick city elements like stair railings and curb and walls in the middle of the ski hill and make the snowboarderss jump over them.  For one event, we’ll have folks sled face up through a windy track and then for another, we’ll make them go face down.  Push this fat weighted thing across the ice, yes, like hockey, but the puck will be big and fat and they’ll use janitor brooms.  What else?  I don’t know. Me either. Yeah, that’s all I got.  Okay, I got something – let’s make sure nobody but us knows who actually wins. No man-to-man races – just points for flips and turns and grabs and timed races.  Everything with one person at a time. Yeah, that should take up a couple of days.  How about for fun, we require that all of the athletes have blond hair and blue or green eyes so no-one can tell them apart?  Well, maybe we should let in a red head and a couple brunettes, you know, for diversity, and all.  Okay.  But don’t let those people in the events with helmets because then nobody will know how diverse the athletes are. Good point.  Alright, folks, I think we've got ourselves an Olympics. 

Here’s another thing. For the Summer Olympics, you feel like those people trained and trained and came to the Olympics with a plan. I’m thinking the gymnasts show up on the mat with an idea of what they are about to do. No time during the Summer do you hear an announcer say, “And watch this, he just learned how to do this yesterday.”  Yeah, you know you’ve heard that coming from Sochi.

Am I watching the Winter Olympics? Sure. Do I give the athletes credit for being a whole lot more athletic than I am, especially since I’m watching from the comfort of my couch eating Girl Scout cookies? Yes, indeed. Do I know what the heck I’m watching? Not at all.

Enjoy the Games!

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Hey Coach! (Or Mom and Dad!)

This past weekend, my daughter’s junior tennis team played in the Divisional Championships. And as the team Captain, I also took on the role as the team Coach.  During the matches, I had less than 30 seconds to talk to the kids between their games. In that 30 seconds, I had to tell them the most important thing that they needed to know to help them win their game. Reflecting back on the weekend - and getting ready for the next round - I found that coaching is much like parenting.

Coaching for the win is much like parenting.

Remind them to take advantage of their strengths and prepare to cover for their weaknesses.  Perhaps they should focus on their serve or ability to vary the speed and direction of their groundstrokes or force their opponent to hit from their weak backhand. Sometimes they needed to move faster or be more prepared for a volley. They knew their skills, they needed tips on strategies to use them.

They will face new, unique situations and will be looking to you for help. When they were playing outside and trying to serve looking straight into the sun, some of the kids were ready to give up those games, they didn’t know how else to overcome the situation. I considered options, what I’ve done in similar situations and the rules of tennis. Then I gave them suggestions to try.  Some worked, some didn’t. But we didn’t just give up.

Make a plan for improvement.  When the matches were all over, the kids were ready to rest and pack up their tennis racquets. But once they took a break, they needed to think about the match they just played and prepare for the next one.

Include the village. I was the official coach, the one allowed to talk to the players during the matches, but it was impossible for me to watch 3 courts all at once and take note of everything going on.  I relied on and listened to the other parents’ observations, questions, and suggestions to make comments to the players. For these two days, it wasn’t “my” kid and “your” kid – it was “our” team and we parents cheered for, congratulated and critiqued each other kids to help them all.

Acknowledge their bad performance. Kids know when they’ve done poorly. My swimmers know when they didn’t swim their best race, the tennis players knew when they didn’t play their best game.  We didn’t say “hey, that was great” when it wasn’t. Instead, I asked, “What could’ve been better? What are you going to do next time?”  Kids need to learn not to dwell on their failures, but to learn from them for the next time they are in the same situation.

Cheer them on. Give them a hug – even when they are hot and sweaty or dripping wet. Let them see you clapping wildly from the crowd. Let them hear you screaming their name from the stands. Even when they act embarrassed, they really do appreciate it. No-one wants to be the kid that no-one cheers for.

Cheer them on even when they don’t know it.  On a weekly basis, my son reminds me that he cannot see nor hear me when he’s underwater.  This doesn’t stop me from screaming from the pool deck.  During the regular tennis season, parents are often behind a glass window.  Even when my kids can’t hear me, I still cheer.  If nothing else, everybody else knows – someone care’s about that kid. That kid is loved.  That kid is special.  And everyone should know that about my kids.

I'm exhausted from 15 hours in the heat, running between courts, and handling administrative duties of the tournament.  And much like parenting, I'll gladly do it again.

Split Loyalties: A Parent's Dilemma

It starts from the moment the second (or third or fourth) child is born. This one wants to nap, that one wants to go out and play. That one wants to go on the slide, this one wants to go one the swings. Let's get pizza, let's get burgers.  Which one's whining wins out?

When Serena and Venus play for another Open title again or Jim and John Harbaugh faced each other for the SuperBowl, there was one big question for the parents: "Oooh, who will they root for?"  At least, they only have to go to one venue and see both their kids, who wins is up to the kids.  What's hard is when you want to cheer for both kids and they are not in the same venue.

It's the smart parents that put all their kids in the same sport. On our summer swim team, we had a family with 4 (or was it 5?) kids, they all swam.  Easy, right?  One Saturday morning, one 4-hour block, all kids are busy and occupied, and parents can be there for everyone. But some folks don't do that. They put their 4 kids in various and separate activities, with the idea that it will give everyone their own identity, a unique talent and sense of pride. Great. Until all of their hardwork culminates on one day.

This weekend we have swim team Championship meet and all the hoo-ray that goes with that, tennis team district play-offs, and a church fashion show.  And we havent even thrown in stuff like meals, church, and sleeping.  Are you thinking that there's too many activities for the hours allotted to a weekend? I would agree.  There's overlaps and conflicts, especially when you throw in travel to two counties.  Obviously, the kids will get to their events somehow, but how does a parent choose where to go?

We generally try to pick the most "important". Yes, I know, it's all important. But for instance, music and show performances usually trump regular games and meets, and definitely any practices, because there's usually only one per quarter/season/year and you can't miss something that's that infrequent. Then, we consider if one is some type of play-off, championship, super-duper something. After that, we split up and text each other progress.

But what happens on a weekend like this one? One-time event, championships, play-offs, and celebrations. That's when we fire up the helicopter and the be-in-two-places-at-once machine. Let me know if you'd ever like to rent them.

Let Girls Be Girls

I spotted this t-shirt for sale at one of my daughter's all-girls basketball tournaments.  It's catchy, but what's it mean?  What is the subtle message we're sending?  "It's one thing to be a great girl, but that means nothing if you can't hang with the boys."

What's the message we're sending our girls?

There seems to be a popular notion that being able to keep up with the boys makes a girl better.  For all we talk about girls being equal, just as smart, strong, athletic as the boys, we  still push for the opportunity to prove our girls by hanging with the boys.  We don't want pink & frilly stuff, we want what the boys have.

Consider the big deal made over the woman who went out to be an NFL kicker. She played soccer, but that wasn't good enough, she was going for a man's job; she didn't make it.  Or the debate whether the top girl college basketball players should forego the WNBA and try-out for the NBA.  What's wrong with playing in the WNBA and being a darn good woman basketball player?  Difference in salary aside, why do they have to prove their skill by competing with Labron and Kobe?

By nature, we are, on average, the smaller, less aggressive sex, yet we want our girls to compete with and be more like the males of our species.  We don't do this to our boys.  When was the last time you heard of parents petitioning for their son to play on the girl's softball team or a male golfer to ask to hit from the women's tee?  No, no, no, that would show some kind of weakness.  What dad would buy their son the t-shirt pictured if it had the reverse message "act like a boy, play like a girl"?

Yes, there are girls that can hang with the boys.  Getting Venus, Serena, Nadal, and Federer one one court would be a great match to watch.  And it'd be fun to watch fellow Blue Hen, Della Donne and Skylar Diggins and Brittney Griner play 3-on-3 with some of the big boys.  But not to prove anything.  Not because the girls need to validate their worth and their skill.  They've already done that.  They've already proved they are great women athletes.  They don't need to also be a great male athletes.

We need to send our girls a different message.

"Act like a girl. Play like a girl. Be proud to be a girl."

Why aren't there more African-American Olympians?

Here's a short quiz, just a few questions.
Name an African-American golfer.
Name an African-American tennis player.
Name an African-American Olympic swimmer.
Name an African-American Olympic gymnast.
Name any African-American winter Olympian.

I'm betting that most people came up with the same answers; your responses probably include the names Woods, Williams, Jones, Dawes, Douglas, Thomas. If you're a real sports enthusiast and historian, you might have a few more. But, even that's a short list.

I heard a sports commentator mention that perhaps now with Gabby Douglas winning Olympic Gold in gymnastics, she may inspire a new generation of African-American young girls to want to be gymnasts. (Gabby is the second African-American Olympic Gymnast and the first to win an individual Gold, following Dominique Dawes' team Gold, if you've missed the Olympic chatter.) And it made me wonder – is it inspiration that African-Americans are missing or something else that keeps them from the Olympic team? Same question for those other sports where African-Americans are in the definite majority, so much so that there's only a few select names in this athletic fraternity.

Experts in at least the fields of sports, history, sociology, economics, political science, urban planning, and cultural anthropology could probably come up with a more thorough explanation, but it seems to me that the limiting factors include:
- Money, i.e disposable income
- Access or opportunity
- The cultural idea or stereotype that "Black people don't do –that – "
- Interest or awareness of the sport at all, as well as how to train in it
- Role models and familiar examples

Most of the sports I listed above are what many consider to be "country club activities" or those of the rich and famous. I mean, golf is not a cheap sport, even if you aren't that good. There's clubs and greens fees and shoes. And it has to be somewhere where there's a lot of green, open space.

But what about swimming, how much could a bathing suit cost, right? Swimming unfortunately, is definitely one that falls in the "Black people don't do that" category. So much so that African-American children are much more likely to drown than White children. (Such a childhood accident is what prompted Olympic swimmer Cullen Jones to learn to swim.) But even after a child gets over the hurdle of learning to swim, if he wants to swim competitively, its not a cheap sport either. There's pool memberships, team memberships, team lessons, team uniforms. Then you've got to get to practice and the meets. And if you really want to be good and go far, you need a coach and more training. And a parent or somebody needs to know all the tips and the right steps to get the kid where he needs to be in order to get noticed. And can go to meets which last hours upon hours. Its not that easy.

My daughter participated in a tennis tournament last week in which one of the other teams participating was from Southeast DC. If you know anything about tennis or the Southeast corner of DC, or both, you probably know that these two terms rarely are thought of together. I spoke with Yvonne, one of the coaches about her team. The handful of players were all under 10, but she said that the Southeast Tennis and Learning Center actually serves about 60 children. The after-school program provides homework help, tutoring, and tennis lessons and practice, as a way to improve the lives of the children and encourage them to go to college. Without the program, probably none of them would be playing tennis, she guessed. Why? Because their families couldn't afford it. Tennis is another expensive sport. She mentioned how some of the kids in the program get so good that they are invited to play at some of the best training sites in the area and they leave the Southeast program. But, fortunately or not, most end up coming back after awhile because the family can't afford to continue to send them to the higher cost tennis centers. The center has, however, been successful in sending a number of its students on to play tennis in college, giving them the opportunity to get a higher education.

We also have to consider the impact of role models. Not only famous folks, but the daily role models that kids have – their family and friends. How many are seeing their parents go off ice skating, how many are going on ski trips for vacation? I'd guess there are more now, than even a generation ago. How long until this is such a part of African-American culture or in the field of interest that young children will consider taking to the ice to grow into professionals?

Now, don't take away from this that no African-Americans have these factors going for them or that no other people face the same barriers. But, I do believe that they do impact the African-American population at a slightly different rate than the majority. This is on top of all the work, talent, and good fortune necessary to become a professional anything and it complicates the computations even more.

Do I have a solution? Not at all, we can leave that to all those experts I referenced above and anyone else who studies some portion of this. But I do think that parents and communities can improve children's lives by exposing them to new and different experiences. Whether they make it to a Gold medal, find a new hobby, or can definitively say they don't like it, just knowing about the options available to them can help them be a more rounded and interesting person.

Team handball, anyone?

"The tournament has been cancelled due to..."

I kinda stop reading the email at that point because, really, do we care why it was cancelled? All we need to know is that we're not spending Saturday driving to the next state to sit in another school gym for the day, eating concession stand hot dogs and potato chips. Instead, we get a rare Saturday to sleep in, granted only for a little while because there are still two (at least) activities scheduled for the day.

It's a mark of an over-scheduled life when you feel like your calendar is out of your hands. I sit reading emails and checking phone messages with my date book and my cozi.com calendar open, putting in appointments and practices and notes for carpool so I don't forget anybody's child somewhere, including my own (and yes, I have). When dentist appointments and play rehearsal and swim practice and PTA meetings all bump into each other, that goes on the "to call" list to start shifting things around. And when I come across an empty calendar box, I start going thru notes again to make sure I didn't miss anything.

How did we get to this point? The days that begin at 5:30 a.m. and don't end until well after midnight. I want to warn my new-mom friends - don't rush, wait another year or two, even three, before signing the little one up for anything - whatever jumping/swimming/art/music/foreign language tutoring/Pre-algebra that you think they will need or are interested in before their first birthday. Because the time of sitting and watching them discover their fingers and toes will go fast.

And on the other side, I am warned by my empty or almost-empty nester friends - enjoy the hours cheering them on from the bleachers, splashing them from the pool deck, singing along in the audience theatre, helping them sell enough cookies for the next coolest prize, and driving all over town with those few minutes to talk about their day. This time before they move on to the big world of their own will go even faster.

Share in the Comments - in what sports/activities are your kids involved?

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