More NJ youth sports idiocy: get a load of this "mercy rule" for my daughter's soccer league

You're gonna love this one. It's even better than the silly "don't hurt the other team's feelings" rule that I mocked yesterday. Call it the "if you're gonna win, don't win by too much" rule.

Ayup, in 6th grade it's unfair to be better than the other team. An email we received last night included this little nugget:

Good grief! You can "win." But you can't win by too much??? "Fair play" means having to pretend you suck?

What totalitarian nightmare is this? Competition is bad! Success is punishable by enforced failure! If you're "too good" at soccer they're gonna cut you down to size!

Harrison Bergeron, please call your office.

Sophie just shook her head when I read it to her. She already mocks the obligatory trophy she gets at the end of each season. Her team doesn't win. Ever. But they still get the exact same shiny piece-of-shit trophy the team that did win gets.

"We're the Best Losers Ever!" she sneered.

I suspect someone thought they were "helping" her team when they dreamed up this rule. Last year her team didn't win a single game, and lost by double digits almost every time.

But you know what? It didn't faze them. Not one bit. Every girl still showed up to every game, determined to try harder. They weren't looking for pity, they wanted to win.

And when they scored the odd goal, man, you'd think they won the World Cup the way they cheered and high-fived each other! They were proud of scoring, even in certain defeat. And we made sure to treat them to ice cream whenever they did score. That was their "victory." And they'd pose for pictures in their uniforms holding their ice cream with the biggest smiles on their faces you've ever seen. That ice cream was way better than any stupid "participation" trophy, because it meant they'd accomplished something together and it felt good.

And in that moment, it didn't matter if the score was 19 to 1. It mattered that everyone had done her best. Which is what I thought youth sports was supposed to be all about. Doing your best. Not pulling up lame in some misguided attempt to prevent hurt feelings.

Posted at 09:57 by Chris Wysocki   [/education]   Comments | Perm Link |
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