Participation Trophies

Daily Meditation 728–2/25/2024

When I was a young boy, I remember playing various sports, mostly at the behest of my parents. I was an average height, average weight kid who was, well, the opposite of athletic. I was that kid who during soccer would literally sit and pick the grass in the field instead of playing — during the 5 minutes of play I would experience in the whole season.

Needless to say, I’ve been waiting 36 years for my letter to play for the Yankees or the Packers. Still nothing!

All that said, I remember after one season of soccer where we I believe lost nearly 75% of our games, we kiddos were all brought to a local pizza place — The Pizza Oven (great cracker-thin crust!!) — for an end-of-season celebration.

There in a big, brown, new box were a set of a dozen or so trophies. They were the squat sort, maybe 6 inches tall, screwed into a tiny square of “marble,” and set on top with a golden-plastic’d figure of a soccer player. Football, for anyone not in America.

When I said earlier that I played about 5 minutes in the entire season, that was no exaggeration…

So imagine my inner Michael Scott beaming ear-to-ear at the sight of a trophy just for me! It didn’t take more than a couple years more of unathleticism to realize wait a second, I didn’t deserve that.