Rewarding participation in youth sport: Beyond trophies for winning

Recently, many parents, sportswriters, and social critics have expressed concern for young athletes being given participation trophies. They claim that it fosters a sense of entitlement and teaches youngsters that they do not need to earn rewards. I argue that youth sport participants should not be rewarded only for participation, but that they should be given opportunities for earing awards beyond mere victory. This is because a variety of values, such as symbolic meaning, challenge and risk, aesthetics, and high-quality relationships with teammates and opponents, deserve reward as well. I conclude that coaches and organizers should find ways to given tokens to most youth sport participants for achieving, or striving to achieve, these alternate values.