Why Do Student Athletes Be Paid?

The blood, sweat and tears a learning child pours out into a sport is rewarded with the same satisfaction as a child who shows up and doesn’t compete. By receiving participation awards, children learn that trying their hardest doesn’t matter. As pro linebacker James Harrison said, “You’re not going to be rewarded for doing your job, and in fact, if you simply show up and don’t perform, you won’t have a job for long. But if you’re the best at what you do and work harder than your competitors, rewards will come.” (Armideo, Travis) By just competing for the trophy, kids don’t truly enjoy the sport. Completing tasks beneficial to their future is a better use of their time. By producing useless participation awards, Americans spend millions of dollars of years, just to reward a child for showing up. Children must not receive participation awards because it creates bad habits and isn’t worth the expenses.
Josh Billings claims that, “To bring up a child in the way he should go, travel that way yourself once in a while.” (Quotes About Example) What he’s saying is that children don’t like to be treated in a way you don’t like to be dealt with.
For example, employees don’t receive less pay for showing up and doing nothing rather than working hard at their job. Two time NFL MVP Kurt Warner argues that kids don’t receive good grades for showing up at school and sports shouldn’t be different(Wallace, Kelly). By giving children participation awards, children don’t learn to try as hard because the result is the same no matter what happens. Giving out trophies shows that nobody cares how hard you work, just as long as you come to the field or court. By learning this children expect rewards to be given to them, when in reality people must work hard to receive
results. When children don’t work hard at a sport, it shows they don’t enjoy it. Christen Press reports that as a child she had more fun playing soccer which she liked and tried hard instead of playing baseball which she didn’t like, but she still receiving the same trophy, and Ashley Merryman insists that by receiving a participation award is like saying “I don’t care if you progress. I don’t care if you learn from your mistakes.” (Ross, Martha) Although many people say playing sports builds character and teamwork, but children don’t learn teamwork if they don’t try to help their team by just playing for a trophy. Instead of wasting their time on sports that are useless and pointless to them, they must be completing tasks that reward them with knowledge beneficial to their future. By playing sports instead of enjoying a different activity, the prices skyrocket. With an average of five dollars a trophy, and roughly 45 million children play 3 sports a year, creating an expense of about 675 million dollars a year. Many people say that receiving a trophy keeps kids in sports, but 675 million dollars is not worth keeping children in something they don’t even want to be a part of. Studies also showed that only twenty percent of children continue to play sports in high school, showing that when a child is given a participation award it doesn’t motivate them to continue playing sports. The costs to make trophies is unreasonable and children must not receive them. Children get the wrong ideas and beliefs from receiving participation awards. Children learn that trophies must be given to them no matter the end result. By playing sports for the trophy children don’t like the sport and can hurt their attention span and other parts of the brain. Getting a participation award also tells a child they will never be challenged and that life will be easy when in reality this mindset will only make life more difficult. The expenses to create a trophy is unreasonable and not worth it. Children must not learn the wrong ideas and participation trophies will only promote wrong thinking.