So...I'm just going to throw this out there.
There's a school district in new Jersey that recently held cheerleader tryouts. We all know how this works usually. Sixty potentials show up vying for fourteen spots.
Some of those spots get filled by talent, come get filled by family connections and one always get filled by the slightly oddball daughter of the 1993 Pumpkin Queen Festival 2nd runner-up who eventually morphed into the inspiration for "The Positively True Adventures of the Alleged Texas Cheerleader-Murdering Mom" made-for-television movie.
So they have their tryouts in "Joorsey" and they pick their fourteen suspects.
"But wait", says Mindy Sue Johnson Turner Norvell Johnson-Smith. "My daughter, Trixie, who finished 47th overall and can't tumble, dance or shave her legs unattended REALLY wants to be a cheerleader and you people that picked the top fourteen are just a bunch of meanie, non-inclusive poo-poo heads!"
The bottom line? Mob mentality takes over. The hue and cry goes up by the other parents, whose "precious darlings" have now been disenfranchised by the whole cheerleading culture. Hoards of hopefuls--even ones that didn't bother to try out --wail and gnash their teeth to the point that the school district caves.
"Everybody gets to be a cheerleader!"
Except now the parents whose children legitimately made the squad through hard work, perseverance, or because Daddy owns the biggest Chevrolet dealership in the region and will furnish a Corvette for Homecoming are mad. And they complain. And what do they get?
"Everybody gets to be a cheerleader or nobody gets to be a cheerleader!"
Well, ain't that just great? Kids...this is why we can't have nice things.
Society has done this. We have allowed this to happen. I saw this coming back in the Eighties.
"Hey, let's make a rule where every kids bats and has to play two innings in the field!"
"Well...keeping score just makes kids feel bad! Let's just not keep score!"
"The team trophies are going to be eight bucks. They all say 'TEAM MVP ' and they come with a blue ribbon!"
"I'm sorry....your snowflake children are devastated because their team didn't make the playoffs with a 1-9 record? Well, let's just let everybody in the playoffs!"
Our kids have grown up and they now have kids of their own. They have lived nothing but participation trophies, sheltered feelings and rainbow kisses on all their boo-boos because that's the way their parents got treated.
welled
When I was a kid back in the day, you were either good enough or you weren't and I lived
on both sides of that fence. Played a little baseball and football moderately well and totally sucked at basketball.
Got cut three different times in junior high and the highlight of my hoops career was seven points in an eighth grade intramural game at Darby. Tried to guard Stevie "World" Black in a PE class once and he torched me for seventeen. And he was a "little person".
But I was really good at something. Skating.
Roller hockey and even mixed dance competitions with a few different hotties who were older than me. I lived for it and I just had a natural talent. I was good.
But I stayed in my lane. My drunk ol' man didn't have to go to Jack's Skateland and threatened to sue to get me on a team or earn me rink time for practice. I was there working as a floor guard, spraying stinky skates and wearing the wheels off my quads. I DESERVED everything I got. Earned it. I owned it.
Competition is a wonderful thing. You either rise above it, chase and catch it or learn from it. The only thing I ever learned from being the best at anything is a sense of smug self-awareness. But those others times--and there were a lot of those other times--I learned humility. Grace under fired. Sportsmanship. Motivation. How to handle disappointment.
You know those soccer games all your kids and grandkids are playing on Saturday morning where there is no official score being kept? Well, it's being kept.
By the kids on the field.
They may be all "good game, good game" and fist bumping as they line up for their fruit boxes and granola bars, but on Monday morning during recess at Rainbow Elementary, they're talking trash and recounting every goal THEIR team scored in that 11-1 skunking they put on your kid on Saturday.
In competition, just like in life, there are winners and losers. We choose the list we populate.
It's just human nature. Not every kid can put a softball on top of a four story elementary school. Not every junior high fullback can run over a defense and break three limbs on players of the opposing team on one play. Not everyone can "get the rim" (me on my best day, for example).
I've seen all three of the above scenarios. I got benched in an eighth grade football game when a guy from Springdale --who had broken a friends tailbone and both arms on an earlier play by running over him--came my way on a sweep.
I was like a matador when he passed by. Ole'. Didn't even think about trying to tackle him. I was moderately athletic but I also was highly intelligent.
But we're all good at something. It just shouldn't be whining and crying to mommy every time we get out little feelings hurt.
Give a man a fish, and he'll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he might win the Bassmaster's Classic.
And suck it up, butter cup...