Quote:
Originally Posted by MarchHare
I'm not a parent and won't comment either way about rewarding kids just for participation, but I do have a big problem with the "if you're not first, you're last" mentality. Go tell an Olympic silver or bronze medalist that you view their accomplishment as equivalent to the person who finished last (not to mention the people who couldn't even qualify for the Olympics) and see what they say to you.
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True, but even Olympians won't tell you that they're all that proud of finishing 39th in a field of 45, and that they need to take the lesson's learned and improve.
And thats why you need to have a winner and a loser. You need to want to kick the crap out of the people ahead of you.
I'd only be weary of the whole participation thing if that was the goal of a coach or a kid going into the event.
Sports isn't about collecting ribbons, its about collecting the right ribbons.