As the U.S. government spends America into oblivion with loans and bailouts and the general public is basically mute on the subject, I now understand how this frame of mind has come to be the norm today. Failure is not an option any longer and it isn’t because of hard work and ingenuity, it is because it wouldn’t be “fair”. For years now the children of America have been taught that there are no consequences to failure which means there is no consequence to not working hard or not making good choices.

Children are allowed on sports teams who have no right to be there because it wouldn’t be right to cut them; it might bruise their fragile psyches. I watched a basketball tournament the other day of younger kids who had no court awareness and no self control because they have been told how to behave by teachers, coaches and officials and taught that they aren’t responsible for their behaviors. I watched a moron father complain to an official after a 4th and 5th grade game that it was the worst officiated game he had ever seen, it didn’t matter that his kid’s team had just been beaten by 50 points, the problem according to the moron father, was the officiating. I watched kids on that losing team push and grab the opposing players, play dirty and whine the entire game and in the end, that pitiful excuse for a father blamed the official.

I was talking to a friend who coaches at the middle and high school level. Years before, we spent many hours on the basketball courts playing pick-up hoops together. He said that one of the biggest problems he sees is that kids don’t play unsupervised ball anymore. They have no idea of how to officiate themselves or even the simple rules that make pick-up basketball so much fun. Everything is orchestrated by coaches and officials today. If a player threw a ball at another player in pick-up ball, it would likely lead to a fight, with no official to break it up, so kids learned some self restraint. We called our own fouls and who got possession after the ball went out of bounds and if there was a dispute then majority ruled. The voices of reason were known as well as those who called phantom fouls. Winning meant your team stayed and played and losing meant you sat and waited for your next turn on the floor, so scores counted. Sometimes games would end in controversy and the wrong team would stay and play but life isn’t fair and that happens in reality.

Failure comes to everyone. It is inevitable. But character is a measure of how someone fails handles it. At the end of practice the 4th and 5th grade team that I am fortunate enough to coach has a little saying we always repeat, it says;

“Win with class or lose with dignity”

Perhaps our industries and our government should learn what that means and start that same mantra.

As a side note; the government has been asking us all to conserve energy and to cut back on driving. Well, the consequence to doing what they asked is this; a proposal to raise the federal fuel taxes. Nice way to support and reward average Americans for doing the right thing. Here is the story….

http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2009/jan/02/us-panel-backs-higher-fuel-tax/?partner=RSS