ShareThisBy RAY McNULTY
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
This is what happens when we coddle our kids because we're more concerned with not damaging their self-esteem than teaching them to take on challenges, to fight through adversity, to compete.
This is what happens when we stop keeping score in youth sports, refuse to reward outstanding performance and give out trophies merely for participating, because we don't want our kids to think less of themselves and know the disappointment that accompanies defeat.
This is what happens when we tell our kids that winning isn't important, that losing is OK, that being pretty good is good enough.
We get soft. We lose our competitive edge.
We're no longer driven to be the best.
You want to know why America has become an also-ran in the world's athletic arena?
You want to know why we can't win Ryder Cups and Davis Cups and all the other trophies and medals we used to regularly take home from international competitions?
You want to know why we no longer dominate baseball, basketball and boxing the way we did for most of the 20th century?
There's your answer. We're not tough enough.
To anyone over the age of 40, those words probably sting a bit, because we grew up in a much different _ and far better _ time in America.
We grew up with a demand for excellence and a hatred for losing.
Vince Lombardi was a legend. Bobby Knight wasn't a punch line. The story of George Patton won an Academy Award for "Best Picture."
Sadly, Patton probably couldn't survive as a general in today's Army. Knight is considered a dinosaur. And we can only wonder how long Lombardi would've lasted trying to coach the self-absorbed, look-at-me millionaires in the modern NFL.
Which says more about us, as a people, than it does about them as leaders.
It says we've become too fat, too happy, too willing to accept less than our best effort.
It says we're a nation in decline.
Thing is, you can't hang all of this on parenting.
Or even Oprah.
We've been going the wrong way as a society for at least the past 10 years, steadily lowering our expectations in nearly every walk of life, whether it be academics or standards of behavior or athletics.
We celebrate mediocrity. We tolerate excuses.
We settle.
Especially when it comes to sports.
We have second-place teams getting wild cards. We have teams with .500 records _ and sometimes worse _ going to the playoffs. We have sports leagues expanding to the point where there aren't enough talented, top-shelf players to go around.6
In golf, we've got Tiger Woods, who is as fierce a competitor as anyone ever to pick up a club.
But that's about it.
Indeed, when Woods is leading a tournament on the weekend, everyone else runs and hides. Worse, they opt to play it safe, settle for a top-10 finish and protect their place on the money list, rather than take the risks necessary to win.
That wasn't always the case.
Just ask Jack Nicklaus, who faced much stiffer challenges from the likes of Arnold Palmer, Gary Player, Billy Casper, Tom Watson, Lee Trevino, Johnny Miller, Raymond Floyd, Hale Irwin and Greg Norman, all of whom refused to back down on the back nine on Sunday.
Everyone played to win, from the first tee to the 72nd green.
And they brought that same competitive fire to Ryder Cup play.
Now, despite being terrific golfers, our guys don't seem to have whatever intangible it takes to handle the pressures of Ryder Cup competition _ which explains why the Europeans have won three in a row, routing the Americans in the last two by identical lopsided, 18-1/2 to 9-1/2 scores.
Similarly, we don't win the Davis Cup much anymore, either.
The U.S. and Australia used to play catch with the team-tennis trophy until the early 1980s. Since then, however, the Americans have won the championship only three times. And we haven't claimed the Cup since Pete Sampras won three matches in the 1995 final against Russia, which dumped Andy Roddick, James Blake and the Bryan brothers 3-1 in last weekend's semifinals.
Roddick and Blake are America's best tennis players, but they're a long way from McEnroe and Connors, Sampras and Agassi.
And we're no longer at the top of the women's game, which has been overrun by the Russians.
As for the other sports we're supposed to own _ baseball, basketball and boxing _ we've been coming up empty at those venues, too.
Remember when the heavyweight belt was the property of the U.S.A.? We haven't had a real champ since Evander Holyfield.
Remember when the "Dream Team" of Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson and Larry Bird rolled through the Olympics as if they were the Globetrotters?
Team USA hasn't won Olympic gold since 2000 in Sydney, stumbling to the bronze medal in Athens in 2004. And we haven't won a World Championship since 1994, taking the bronze in 1998, finishing sixth in 2002 and getting another bronze this summer.
And let's not forget about the U.S.'s failure to get to the medal round at the inaugural World Baseball Classic last spring.
True, the event was held at the worst possible time _ during spring training _ but we couldn't get past Canada, Korea or Mexico? On our home turf? In baseball?
Sound the alarm, folks: America has hit the iceberg.
We're going down.
We're not nearly as good as we used to be. We're not nearly as tough as we need to be. And it's our own fault.
This is what happens when we coddle our kids, when we stop keeping score, when we decide that being a winner no longer matters.
We get soft. We lower our expectations. We become losers.
We should be ashamed of ourselves.
We're supposed to be better than this.
We're Americans.
We're supposed to work harder, be more driven, give whatever effort is necessary to win.
We're supposed to be the best.
That's what we were told growing up in the 1960s and '70s.
That's what we should be telling our kids now.
(Ray McNulty is sports columnist for Scripps Treasure Coast (Fla.) Newspapers, The Stuart News, Fort Pierce Tribune and Vero Beach Press Journal. Contact him at ray.mcnulty@scripps.com or on the Web at www.tcpalm.com.)
