Two of my three kids played indoor soccer this winter in a YMCA league. The third would have played, but they haven’t created the 6 - 18 month age group yet. The YMCA league is an everyone plays, everyone wins approach. Which means that every kid plays at least half the game (cool) and they don’t keep an official score (silly).

I understand the concept behind not keeping score, maintaining self esteem and all that, but the fact is that all the parents keep score anyway. The parents of the teams that win congratulate their children for vanquishing the other team, and the parents of the team that looses congratulate their kids on how hard they played. While the intention behind this type of sports is noble, I think that it does our children a great disservice in a couple of ways.

First, “losing” a game teaches our children how to deal with disappointments and failures in life. We will not always feel good about ourselves and our lives. As a matter of fact, there is an excellent chance that we will often NOT feel good about ourselves. The trick is to learn how to take those failures and learn from them. The second thing is that if sports are about, at least partially, building character then losing must be part of that. Learning how to lose as part of a team (no finger pointing, no fighting, everyone taking responsibility for the loss) is an invaluable lesson to learn. One of the major things that companies look for in employees is the ability to work as part of a team and college is too late to try and teach this.

I got to coach my younger child’s team for their final game this season, and I would say that I probably irritated several of the parents with my enthusiasm when our team did well. For this I do not apologize, just as I do not apologize for showing emotion when they do not do so well. I love and support my children whether they win or lose and they know this. I am always proud of them when they do their best even when they are up against someone who is better, and they get to feel good about being able to say, “I did not quit. I played hard. I Lost, but I had fun. We’ll get them next time.”

When everyone is the same, we are not all special, we are all mediocre.