Doug Cartland's Four-Minute Leadership Advisory
Participation
Doug Cartland
Doug Cartland, Inc.
11/03/2015

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I've been wanting to get to this...
A couple of months ago, James Harrison, linebacker for the Pittsburgh Steelers, sent back two participation trophies that his eight and six year old sons received.
He tweeted out his rationale thusly:
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. #harrisonfamilyvalues
Ok, well.
First of all, I'm on board with Harrison wanting to root out entitlement in his kids. I also think it's important for all of us to learn that sometimes our best is not good enough. And the "drive to do better" is certainly good.
However...
When I was a kid growing up in Park Ridge, Illinois, a northwest suburb of Chicago, I played football for the Mighty Mites. It was a league for 6 to 13 year-olds.
I loved football, but was wafer small and not very good. After a while, because of my size, they actually put me in the age group one year younger than me. I did better there, but still.
The league founder and president was Sam Donatucci, who was a gym teacher at a local grade school and happened to run a successful trophy business out of his home.
Every year we'd have a banquet. And every year I would walk into the banquet dressed in my Sunday best and behold a sea of gold. It was trophies to the horizon. Tables with trophy after trophy lined up like soldiers waiting to be taken home by some kid. Hundreds of them.
Every boy in the league was called out by name by his coach, marched across the front of the room in front of friends, fans and family and got one, including moi. After seven years I had seven trophies on a shelf in my bedroom. Then it was on to high school.
And to get a trophy all we had to do was participate. Yes, "all we had to do."
Twenty-five years later, in the decade of the nineties, I lived in Harvard, Illinois. Three kids of my own were growing up then and I got involved in seemingly everything.
The Chamber of Commerce board, the Rotary Club, a pool referendum, a library referendum, the annual Milk Days celebration, little league coaching, little league Board of Directors, high school coaching. I counseled troubled kids at the junior high. At just 35 years old I won an award from the local Jaycees chapter for my community involvement.
There were zillions of fundraisers. I sat on a roof for 24 hours to raise money for our high school underclassmen athletic programs and rode a lawn tractor around Lake Michigan to raise money for my high school soccer program. Kissed a pig at half time of a high school basketball game in another fundraiser. Raced ostriches at a county fair.
Too, I led a statewide march on Springfield to protest a lack of funding for schools in Illinois.
Now, I haven't laid all that out to you to boast my resume, but to let you know that I have a track record that lends credibility to this assertion:
Here's what I noticed.
Planning and carrying out all of these events, all of these volunteer efforts, all of these community occasions, it seemed I saw the same nine or ten people helping all the time. It appeared very much the case that just a few people were doing everything.
And anyone that is involved heavily in your schools or community will attest to the same thing.
The mantra was, "If we could only get more help. If we could only get more people to participate."
Whoa! There's that word.
There's something to be said for rewarding kids for being involved and it only secondarily has to do with their self-esteem.
Instead of sitting home brain dead from video games, instead of wandering the streets breaking windows, instead of wiling away the hours comatose, they participate.
School grades have to be earned. That's a good thing. All academic achievements do. Then high school comes along and all of life becomes competitive. We have to earn scholarships or a place on a team or a lead part in a play. There are plenty of things, even in young life, that have to be earned. We're not short on that.
However, the simple act of participating, getting involved, is just as significant a lesson. Teach people to participate as kids and they are more likely to participate as adults.

Reward it. The Mighty Mites and rows and rows of trophies taught me that.
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Sincerely,  

Doug

 

Doug Cartland, President
Doug Cartland, Inc.

 

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