because they are meaningless if everyone gets one. My youth track team had about 100 kids on it from ages 9-14, there was 1 trophy for the best boy and 1 for the best girl. It actually meant something if you got it.
I guess I don’t quite understand the participation trophy argument. Nobody is giving every player on the team an MVP award. That’s still only given to one player. Teams also award things like sportsmanship awards, most improved, yadda yadda. Then, perhaps, everyone gets a “participation” trophy as a memento as previously suggested. Kind of like if you complete a race (I.e. half marathon), most likely you’re going to receive a medal even if you didn’t win.
Does that really take away from the significance of the the trophy given to the winner? Or from the MVP/sportsmanship award in the other example?
I don’t feel strongly here, but I guess I don’t believe it does… everybody still knows what it is and what it means. And, maybe for the person receiving it, it means something… like hey I wasn’t very good but I stuck that out and learned some sh*t along the way. Or… I may have finished 245/550 in this marathon, but holy crap that was grueling, I trained hard, and this medal will always be a nice reminder of that.
I say this as someone who did a half marathon and have zero idea where the medal is, lol.