It’s How You Play the Game: The Fate of Western Civilization and Grade-School Soccer

PajamsMedia ^ | 11/7/2010 | Barry Rubin

[HangnJudge]

It‘s something of a stretch to compare a soccer game among eleven-year-old boys with the fate of the democratic world, but I’ve always managed to see big issues in small things.

My son is playing on a local soccer team which has lost every one of its games, often by humiliating scores. The coach is a nice guy, but seems an archetype of contemporary thinking: he tells the kids not to care about whether they win, puts players at any positions they want, and doesn’t listen to their suggestions.

He never criticizes a player or suggests how a player could do better. My son, bless him, once remarked to me: “How are you going to play better if nobody tells you what you’re doing wrong?” The coach just tells them how well they are playing. Even after an 8-0 defeat, he told them they’d played a great game.

And of course, the league gives trophies to everyone, whether their team finishes in first or last place.

I’d even seen an American television documentary about boys and sports which justified this approach, explaining that coaches were doing something terrible by deriding failure, urging competitiveness, and demanding victory. So were the kids really happier to be “relieved” of the strain of trying to win, “liberated” from feeling bad at the inequality of athletic talent?

[HangnJudge]

The Comment Logs on the Article were also worth perusing...

BTW - MontaniSemperLiberi
our family is 8 generations West Virginia
Pre and Post Civil War / War Between the States

Currently in Tennesse
The Volunteer State

[BenKenobi]

Played soccer under the same rec league requirements. Not sure why a team cannot be competitive when taking everybody. Yes, you need a coach that can evaluate talent and assign people to the correct positions, but that’s part of the job of the coach.

In three years we lost 4 times, once in the championships, and won twice in a row.

[Turbo Pig]

It's too easy to ruin a sport by introducing all sorts of absurd machinations in order to avoid a tie outcome.

I am not going to argue with you there. The current NFL rules are a good example, IMO. Notice that I said "routinely", though. A tie outcome, in and of itself, is not a bad thing.

[who_would_fardels_bear]

So many conservatives praising the benefits of the official sport of our future one world government.

That says it all.