7 comments

1. perhaps “participation trophies” are something like “common grace”—it won’t get you the life of the age to come but it shows you that god tried

   the gospel coalition also thinks that real life needs more losers than winners

   http://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/trevinwax/2013/10/15/dont-give-your-kid-a-trophy-for-losing/

   • Or it confuses works and grace. Sports is a covenant of works.

2. it’s not “graduation”—it’s moving from fourth grade to fifth

3. We got participation trophies as kids – twenty-five years ago in the Deep South. We thought of them merely as mementos of our time in the baseball league (Dixie Youth). I see where this can reward mediocrity, but we never thought much of it in any event.

   • http://heidelblog.net/2010/12/all-the-children-are-not-above-average/

     http://heidelblog.net/2011/01/how-dare-you/

     http://heidelblog.net/2013/10/the-irony-of-the-coming-dark-age/
     http://heidelblog.net/2013/07/narcissism-ignorance-and-bureaucracy-a-vicious-combination/

     http://heidelblog.net/2009/08/education-true-and-false-part-1/

4. Dr. Clark: Points well-taken. In this specific case of hard-nosed little league in the heart of Dixie, we got our trophies the same way one buys a t-shirt at the beach or the mountains. The judgment came when we kept score at age 6, struck out in front of crowd of people, didn’t make All-Stars, etc. Point being – our trophies didn’t do much for us one way or another but no one left thing he was hothouse flower. Thanks much for your insight.

5. I think I deserve a sticker, a T-shirt, a first edition of the Bay Psalm Book, or whatever, for visiting Heidelblog at least twice a day.

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