When I was a kid, I wasn’t particularly sporty, and that hasn’t changed. I’ve always been short, though up until my 30s I was lucky to break 100 pounds. I tried a few sports — volleyball and basketball when I was in middle school. I played those sports both years just for fun, but when I got to high school I was very aware that I would never make varsity.

I was not talented at those sports and to be honest, at the time I can’t say I truly understood them. I look back and realize that I had zero instruction as to the actual purpose of what I was doing. It’s funny that I think I played an entire two years of basketball as a point guard without really understanding what I was supposed to do as a point guard.

The highlight of my middle school career was the time I served an entire volleyball game. It was a really cool moment, made more entertaining due to the fact that I couldn’t and to this day, can’t serve overhand.

I was very aware of my shortcomings and knew that my talents lie elsewhere. For me, track and field was my game. So every year around this time, I get excited to see how the state track championship goes. I love seeing how the athletes have advanced over time and my favorite stories are those that involve seniors leaving their high school careers behind on high notes with gold medals at state.

I can’t say I was a stellar athlete. I ran and for some stupid reason did long and triple jumps at which I was abysmal. However, for having short little legs, I could run —not sprint, but run. I was best as a distance runner which became more apparent the older I got. Eventually I would run track, indoor track and cross country on a college scholarship.

The funny part about it is that I hate running and I mean loath it. I truly and honestly cannot understand people who run for pleasure. There is absolutely nothing pleasurable for me in running. However, I was good at it and I loved finishing a race to the sound of applause. I loved picking a girl in front of me and deciding I was going to pass her. I loved having my coach point out someone and tell me to go get her because he knew I could. Perhaps it was a competitive nature, or maybe it was just healthy attention-seeking behavior, but that was how I derived pleasure in running.

I had no delusions about what kind of athlete I was and I knew I was never going to make the sport a career. I did it because I was good at it — it was as simple as that.

It is worth noting that in life people are good and bad at different activities. Our various skills and shortcomings make us who we are. At a certain age, participation trophies and playing without keeping score makes sense, but at a point it becomes necessary to clearly define a winner and a loser. By doing so, participants learn good sportsmanship which is important, but they also learn about themselves. They learn where their strengths and weaknesses lie.

I am glad I learned these about myself while I was young. It helped guide me in my future. I didn’t waste time on pursuits that wouldn’t be fruitful. I would have hated to become an adult believing I was good at things that I wasn’t just to learn how inept I truly was in a more cruel environment.

Not being good at something isn’t a flaw, it is just another facet to who you are as a person. I am grateful that I grew up in a time during which I was able to learn what I was good at without rose-colored glasses. This made it easier for me to know what I needed to work harder at later and at what I naturally excelled.

This is not to say people can’t love something and work hard in order to be good. While a few people are lucky enough to be naturally talented, most have to put work and practice into things. However, I was able to see the folly in wasting time on something I didn’t really enjoy. I didn’t like basketball all that much and I would have been miserable on a softball field. So I saw no need to work at getting better at those activities. I did however, much to my own chagrin, run miles upon miles to hone that particular skill and it served me well.

I think it’s time to accept that our kids can be good at things they don’t want to do and bad at things that interest them. The key is to allow them to find out who they are and what dreams they want to chase without skewing their perspective. It’s healthy to lose. It’s healthy to know that most things in life take hard work.

As adults they won’t receive participation trophies at work. Their spouse won’t be handing them a ribbon just for showing up in their marriage. When they have children, they won’t be given a certificate of participation for parenting by simply being there. Every aspect of adulthood requires effort and it is best to learn that beforehand. It is best that they fall, when we can pick them up and dust them off and not later when the fall results in the loss of a job or the ending of marriage.

There is a place for participation trophies, but someday, if done well, the trophy for first place will feel infinitely better. Teri L. Hansen Reporter