Embarrassing Awards

The Golden Turkey Awards > is a book by Harry and Michael Medved which lists films that took themselves seriously but were epic failures.

At his 6th grade graduation, my son was given an award for the "bluest eyes." That was after others had received awards for good citizenship, artistic talent, leadership, friendship, etc.

In other words, they ran out of awards and started making meaningless ones up.

This happened to me as well, when I played church softball for Bethel Baptist Church in Erie, PA. I started playing church ball before most boys my age joined the team, 13 maybe, and I wasn't very good.

I stuck it out, though, and signed up again the next season, and by the time I was 16 and driving myself to games, I had plenty of friends playing with me.

At the close of one of those later seasons, when I really thought I had gotten better, I attended an awards banquet for the GARB league we were a part of (mostly Western Ohio and Eastern PA).

As the evening went on and impressive-sounding awards were handed out (most runs, no hitters, games played, etc), I began to get that sinking feeling.

After nearly all the rewards had been handed out, one of the coaches got up (Mr Bolton, I think) and presented an award to three boys who weren't great players but played their hearts out. It was the last award given. 

I was one of the three, and the only one of the three that showed up.

And so I accepted it alone.

Meaningless awards only emphasise disparity and are best left unawarded.

And now that I'm an adult, I realize that ceremonies for kids are often just adults patting themselves on the back.

[2012-2013]

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