On March 30, three North Carolina Republican state senators — Tim Moffitt (R-Dist. 48), Eddie Settle (R-Dist. 36) and Bobby Hanig (R-Dist. 3) — introduced Senate Bill 430, “An Act to Prohibit Awards in Youth Recreation of Local Governments Based Solely on Participation,” in the N.C. legislature.
As its name suggests, the bill requires all youth sports “operated under the authority of the government shall not include awards for participants based solely on their participation in the sport or activity. Awards provided in connection with the activity, if any, shall be based on identified performance achievements.”
The awarding of trophies, medals and ribbons is a common occurrence for youth sports teams at the end of the season. Regardless of how a team plays, younger participants can usually look forward to bringing home a piece of hardware for their efforts. The practice has been common in American athletics for decades, and along the way conservative politicians have regularly railed against the idea.
In a paper written for The Sport Journal in December 2022, Unversity of Virginia’s College at Wise’s Matthew J. Williams — an associate professor of sport management — said awarding children trophies based solely on participation can have an unwanted effect in the classroom, as well.
“Students believe that if they show up to class or do minimal work in the classroom, they should be rewarded with a higher grade than they deserve,” Williams’ paper states.
Speaking with several members of the Chatham County youth sports scene, the News + Record found there are some differences in opinion on participation trophies. Most agree, though, that state lawmakers should butt out of the conversation.
“It’s ridiculous,” said Northwood High athletic director Cameron Vernon. “I think that, once again, the legislature needs to stay in its lane. Most of these politicians preach less government, but here they are trying to push stuff like this.”
Vernon, who has been AD at Northwood since the beginning of last school year, has also coached girls basketball and volleyball during his time with the Chargers. He believes the participation trophy bill — like the recent bills in the state legislature trying to limit the power of the NCHSAA and ban transgender girls from competing in girls sports — are wholly unnecessary.
Shawn Murray, who coaches the West Chatham Little League 12U All-Stars baseball team, agreed with Vernon that politicians should stay out of this debate.
While he does think participation trophies are ultimately detrimental to youth sports, Murray said it should be up to an individual league or conference to determine whether participation trophies are handed out.
“I don’t like the government getting involved in sports, period, but I’m a big proponent of not doing participation trophies,” Murray said. “Unless you’re 4, 5 or 6 years old and playing tee ball — at that age they don’t really know anyhow. But once they start getting 7, 8, 9 or 10, unless you’re in first place, to me, you shouldn’t get the same trophies.”
Seaforth boys lacrosse head coach Joe Hubbard holds similar beliefs, and said he thought the bill was a good idea. A parent of a 10-year-old, Hubbard believes receiving a trophy at the end of the year or at the end of a tournament regardless of performance ends up hurting the development of youth athletes as they progress to more advanced levels of play.
“I was at a youth tournament (Sunday), and it’s like, you want them to compete and you want them to learn from it,” Hubbard said. “You have to compete to win. But along the way, if you don’t end up winning, getting a trophy says, ‘Well, that’s OK. You won anyway.’”
According to the N.C. Legislature’s website, Senate Bill 430 passed its first reading on April 3 and was referred to the Committee on Rules and Operations the same day. There haven’t been any updates on the status of the legislation since then, though the bill has drawn plenty of criticism from national media, including from Fox News hosts Greg Gutfeld and Dana Perino, who called the move to ban participation trophies “nonsense” and a “waste of time.”
Sports Editor Jeremy Vernon can be reached at jeremy@chathamnr.com or on Twitter at @jbo_vernon.