Participating in the American Demise

There's been a buzz in the news cycle during the last couple of weeks about yet another national plague; one that’s rotting the culture and moral fiber of America.  It has nothing to do with sexual preference or email-gate: not about Muslims or right wing Christians; and it isn't over a warming earth or smarmy, sanctimonious political windbags.  Nope, none of those.  The new national scourge is, hold onto your butts sports fans – participation trophies.

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For those who’ve been on a cruise or just naturally choose to avoid stupidity, participation trophies became part of the national debate when professional football player James Harrison announced that the trophies that were given to his children would be returned.  Said Harrison; “I came home to find out that my boys received two trophies for nothing, participation trophies! While I am very proud of my boys for everything they do and will encourage them till the day I die, these trophies will be given back until they EARN a real trophy. I'm sorry I'm not sorry for believing that everything in life should be earned and I'm not about to raise two boys to be men by making them believe that they are entitled to something just because they tried their best...cause sometimes your best is not enough, and that should drive you to want to do better...not cry and whine until somebody gives you something to shut u up and keep you happy.”

And so, for the time being at least, our new national Yoda on America’s moral fiber is a professional football player; appropriate for a sports crazed nation that is absolutely, insanely and unabashedly goggle eyed gaga over football. Of course it was Harrison’s right to strip his kids of the trophies. It’s not like he beat them or sucker punched a woman.  That he had to announce it to the world would be puzzling if not for the fact that Harrison has a penchant for stirring the pot.  And stir it he did as the battle lines were drawn and the pros and cons of participation trophies were debated in every medium and I suppose damn near every sports bar in the nation.  The anti-trophy crowd’s argument was outlined by Nancy Armour of USA today; “Yet somewhere along the way, someone had the misguided notion that kids should live in a la-la land where everything is perfect, there are no hardships or heartbreaks, and you get a shiny trophy or a pretty blue ribbon just for being you…No wonder study after study has shown that millennials, the first of the trophy generations, are stressed out and depressed. They were sold a bill of goods when they were kids, and discovering that the harsh realities of life apply to them, too, had to have been like a punch to the gut.”  Pardon me, I feel a sneeze coming on –“BULLSHIT.”  Ah that feels better.

So there we have it.  The collapse of America is imminent because of participation trophies.  Okay, that’s hyperbole but I’ve exaggerated for a reason, because folks have gone off the deep end over cheap hardware.  Consider NBC Washington anchor Jim Vance who opined, “It’s child abuse to give a kid a trophy that he has not earned.” We’re talking about children here folks; children playing games.  But as too often happens with youth sports the adults are butting in and fucking up the works; because that’s what adults do.

Having two kids who participated in youth sports and having coached youth sports I guess I have a little experience in the area.  My kids got participation trophies.  They’re packed away in a plastic bin somewhere.  My kids; one 32 and one 29 seem to be doing just fine thank you and I don't even think that they remember the trophies.  They work, they’re raising kids and they’ve gone through some hard times; particularly my daughter who I often consider one of the grittiest, most tenacious people I know.  I have a nephew who got a participation trophy for tee ball.  A few years later his dad died and the boy became the man of the house and remained so all the way through his college graduation. 

As a coach I gave out more than a few of these trophies.  The kids were happy, for a moment; and then the trophies were more or less forgotten in favor of the pizza party and handed to the parents who I imagine put them up on a mantle to collect dust and take up space until they were finally put away in storage.  These are mementos, nothing more, nothing less.

Give a kid a trophy and the leap is made that he won't be prepared for real life.  Okay, wanna get the little blighters ready for the real world?  Let's talk behind their backs; spread rumors about them; throw them under the bus; flip them a bird and drop an "F" bomb on them if they reach in front of you for the bowl of potatoes at the dinner table and by all means decrease their allowance as you load more chores on them. 

Over the decades I’ve become weary of that time worn notion that somehow athletics prepare kids for life, build character and toughen the spirit.  I’ve adopted John Wooden’s idea that “Sports don’t build character, they reveal it.” It isn’t up to the coach, the team or an activity to do the parent’s job of preparing a child for life, molding character and building a foundation that will stand up to life’s storms.  As for Ms. Armour and her notion that millennials are depressed; well maybe she needs to take a little stroll out of the sports department and take a visit to the news department.  Everyone’s depressed lady.  Americans are working brutal hours, are afraid to take vacation time and are bringing home less of the bacon (which by the way costs more per pound and has less lean and more fat); our government is a bureaucratic, bickering snag to progress; we’ve been at war for more than a decade; personal privacy is extinct and the front runner for the GOP presidential nomination is nuts-a-rama.  And Nancy Armour is worried about trophies?

What is truly disappointing is that the national debate about youth sports has centered on hokum; a non-issue.  Whatever happened to the other issues?  You know the ones that are apparently too trivial to catch the ire of Washington news anchors.  It would be refreshing to see Google get blown up with stories and debates about:

                Kids burning out at a young age because they’re pushed by parents and coaches to travel hither and yon playing a sport year round in that often futile hunt for the D-1 scholarship.

                Coaches falsifying records to pack their teams with ringers.

                Coaches teaching kids the "benefits" of flaunting league rules.

                Coaches and parents acting out at games, all the way from abusing umpires, officials and the other team to coming to outright fisticuffs.

                Kids undergoing major orthopedic surgeries because they’re pushed to do too much too soon.

                The use of steroids by kids as early as 8^th grade.

                Coddled kids?  What about those uber-talented youngsters who get to skate from youth through college not being able to read at grade level?  What about the star athletes who, during their youth, aren't held accountable for any aspect of real life, be it basic responsibility or differentiating between wrong and right.  As long as they produce runs and wins, hey, it's all good - just try not to get caught next time. 

If we’re going to have a national tirade about participation awards why are we picking on kids?  What about the tens of thousands of adults who jog a 10K at 15 minutes a mile?  They get medals. And while kids usually forget about their awards the adults literally slaver over their medals; they paper their walls with them  At the risk of sounding like a geezer, back in my day you didn’t get a medal unless you finished in the top three. Everyone else got a cheapie little ribbon.  I’ve got less of a problem with an 8 year old getting a trophy than an adult getting a fancy medal for taking pictures along the course with a cell phone. 

Sports is America's graven image.  Professional sports are a business for both owners and players where character, fair play and sportsmanship are for the most part relegated to the worn, dusty shelves of nostalgia.  College sports are a morass of hypocrisy, greed, corruption and oceans of money misapplied.  But youth sports are for the most part and for the vast majority of kids supposed to be a fun activity.  Yes there are opportunities for life lessons; to learn about teamwork, appreciate camaraderie, develop healthy habits, hone skills and coordination, learn perseverance and maybe develop a lifelong activity. Youth sports have become the last bastion of sport as a game; where fun is supposed to trump yes - real life.  

                

Two Stories; Giving and Taking

This is a story about two stories.  Both are typically American.  Both reflect values.  One story is about values cherished.  The other is about values gone awry.  The stories tell a story; about what is good in America and what is wrong with America.  Each story is about responsibility; accepted and denied. Both stories were on the recent nightly news and were broadcast within minutes of each other.  One story can warm the heart and bring a tear.  The other story is a groin kick that makes you wonder about the double dealing we often think pervades our society.    

Welchie and Reggie on a Chilly Ballpark Night

The sneer is gone from Casey's lip, his teeth are clenched in hate;

He pounds with cruel violence his bat upon the plate.

And now the pitcher holds the ball, and now he lets it go,

And now the air is shattered by the force of Casey's blow.

From Casey at the Bat by Ernest Thayer

It was awfully late in the year to be attending my first baseball game of the season; nearly mid-June, a Tuesday evening game against the Washington Nationals. I usually manage to get to the yard in late April; certainly no later than mid-May.  This game was a birthday present for my son and a present for myself.  There aren't many better ways to spend an evening than taking in a ballgame with your son.  It’s the American way.  There are a lot of “American ways”; some good, some not so much.  This is one of the best.

Sochi: Skiing, Skating, Skeletons and Scandal

We’re in the middle of that quadrennial snow festival known as the Olympic Winter Games; this time in Sochi, Russia.  Concerns aplenty as the games began.  Concerns about security, treatment of LBGT athletes and visitors, and facilities that are still in various stages of completion (a local columnist described some areas as looking like a big construction site).  And then there’s Mother Nature.  She’s apparently irritated at Vladimir Putin.  Mountaintop views reveal a shortage of snow and according to the "expert analyst" talking heads what snow there is, is of poor quality.  At the half pipe the snow was too bumpy; at the skiing venues it was too slushy and at skeleton the ice was too warm.  The folks at the Sochi Chamber of Commerce (if such a body exists) must be taking good long pulls from the vodka bottle every time the camera pulls to show vast brown hills. For his part Putin has poo-pooed the criticism.  Calls it cold war propaganda.  Vlad should know cold war.  The man who once called the Soviet collapse the "greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the (20th) century" sometimes seems to have aspirations of resurrecting it.  Sort of brings a nostalgic tug to my heart strings; the good old days of fallout shelters, those brilliantly colored mushroom clouds, ducking under a desk when the alarm goes off with all those jolly jokes about kissing your ass goodbye and watching the occasional B-52 cruising overhead. My apologies comrade, I digressed. 

Sochi 2014.  Got snow?

Snow quality?  I live in the San Francisco Bay Area.  What in the hell do I know about snow except that it's wet, we yearn for it in vain every Christmas Eve and actually getting it would cause an untold number of traffic accidents once the local amateurs got in their cars.

The Monster of the Great Northwest

“I am not a role model.  I’m not paid to be a role model.  I am paid to wreak havoc on the basketball court. Parents should be role models.  Just because I dunk a basketball, doesn’t mean I should raise your kids”  ~  Charles Barkley

A monster is prowling the great Pacific Northwest.  A creature that has terrified the populace; making women faint, grown men cry and forcing parents to lock their children indoors.  Have they found Sasquatch?  Is it a crazed serial killing mountain man lurking in the dark forests preying on unsuspecting campers?  Is it a rogue grizzly bear or a rabid wolf tearing apart hikers?  No it’s none of those.  It’s much worse.  It’s a football player; Seattle Seahawks’ cornerback Richard Sherman. 

A Dog Day at the Park

“[Baseball] breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall all alone. You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops.”  ~ A. Bartlett Giamatti, Commissioner of Major League Baseball, April 1^st 1989 – September 1^st 1989. 

It’s been a season nobody saw coming. Like that line shot foul ball into the stands that finds your skull when you turn away for just an instant, we glanced away for a moment in June and looked up just in time to be struck by 2013.  After a 2012 World Series Championship the Giants have found themselves in last place in their division, playing baseball that is often sloppy, passionless and sometimes downright unwatchable.

11 strikeouts in the better days of 2012

Glove Story

Donning a glove for a backyard toss, or watching a ball game, we are players again, forever young.~ John Thorn; baseball historian.

Its baseball season again.  Time to dig into the closet and pull out the glove.  I did that last year about this time and went through some moments of panic when I couldn’t find it, tearing the closet apart, shouting at my wife, "Cora, Where in hell is my glove?" 

"I don't know. I don't play baseball." she yelled back. 

Then I remembered that I’d loaned it to my son.  I asked him to give it back which gave me an idea for a present for his upcoming birthday. 

Many Thanks Steve

65 toss power trap; 65 toss power trap.  That might pop right open.” ~ Hank Stram

The Autumn wind is a pirate
Blustering in from sea
With a rollicking song he sweeps along
Swaggering boisterously.
His face is weatherbeaten
He wears a hooded sash
With a silver hat about his head
And a bristling black mustache
He growls as he storms the country
A villain big and bold
And the trees all shake and quiver and quake
As he robs them of their gold.
The Autumn wind is a Raider
Pillaging just for fun
He'll knock you 'round and upside down
And laugh when he's conquered and won ~ Steve Sabol

Bamboozled at the Old Ball Game (A Fan's View)

“There is but one game and that game is baseball”  John McGraw

“When baseball is no longer fun, it's no longer a game.”  Joe DiMaggio

The cops just knocked on the door and told us to turn down the music; the bartender skipped last call and stopped serving; mom just told our friends to go home; and the lifeguard just hollered, “Everybody out of the pool.”  The party’s over. That’s how it felt for us Giants fans when it was announced that left fielder Melky Cabrera was suspended for 50 games (the remainder of the season) after he tested for excessive levels of testosterone; dirty.  What is it about left field at AT&T Park?  First it was drug cheat extraordinaire, Barry Bonds; now Cabrera.  

A Five Ring Sunday Circus

Alright, so I got sucked in.  I’ve taken to watching the games and in large measure it took track and field to hook me.  Well, it took track.  My cynical side, which as anyone who reads this regularly would know is dominant, tells me that the strength events are PED tainted.  I still feel burned over those two USA Track and Field Championships at Stanford a few years back.  A few years back can be translated to mean “the Balco years.”   I spent top dollar for good seats, hyped the events to Cora and then we found out after the Balco bubble burst that many of the results from both meets were frauds. 

It's The "O" Games - Oh My!

“The Olympic Games are the quadrennial celebration of the springtime of humanity.”
Pierre de Coubertin

“Every party needs a pooper, that’s why we invited you.”

From a little ditty.

Being the curmudgeonly party pooper is a tough job but someone has to take it on.  The “O” Games have begun and the world and NBC are all atwitter.  You’ll notice that I’m not using the proper word to describe these quadrennial events that are equal part sport, nationalism and soap opera (Currently two years separates the winter and summer games.  In years past the winter and summer games occurred in the same year).  I’m staying away from the actual word itself because it has an armor plated copyright, defended with badger-like tenacity and I don’t have a lawyer with the horsepower of the “O” Organizing Committee’s lawyers to fight off any suits over my use of the “O” word (In fact I don’t have a lawyer of any horsepower). 

I’m being extra cautious because according to a story on NPR the “O”, organizers in London are being O-verly zealous this year about protecting the copyright.  The “O” games lawyers (If the games were being held in nearby Dublin, could we call them O’Lawyers?) are working O-vertime making sure that nobody sells fake merchandise, hijacks the rings to promote their laundry business or dog sitting service or misuses the “O” word.  We have an “O” Boulevard here in nearby Walnut Creek; I’m wondering if the town fathers are consulting the city attorneys.