Toronto Injury Lawyer Blog
My son has been playing competitive soccer in Ontario since he was 5 years old.
The competitive soccer landscape has changed a lot since the days of when I played.
When I played, there were scores and standings. There were stakes such that the games meant something. There were winners, and there were losers. And sometimes, because it’s soccer, there were even ties! There were championships to be won and lost. There was the thrill of victory, along with the agony of defeat.
From a soccer perspective, children were able to learn the right way to win. The good coaches taught the children to win with grace and dignity, and respect for their opponents. They were taught not to be a poor sport winner, or cocky, or gloating when winning.
On the flip side, children learned not only to loose, but how to loose without being a sore loser. Losing is part of sport and is a hard thing to learn, and a hard feeling to have to deal with. But, if you weren’t able to cope with losing, or to bounce back after a loss, then you wouldn’t be able to play. Even the greatest athletes of all time have lost.
Children learned how to play the game with a lead. And also learned how to play from behind to secure a dramatic comeback win. These environments built character which is difficult to teach. It was learned in an environment almost impossible to replicate, through a shared experience with teammates and coaches who were going through the same thing.
Soccer however, at least in the sanctioned world of Ontario Soccer, has changed. Before the age of 13, there are no standings. There are no scores. There are no winners. There are no losers. You can say that every game, regardless of the performance of the teams, or the individual players, ends up in a tie because scores are not even recorded. No games have meaning. There are no stakes. And, because there are no stakes, that means that there is no pressure to win, or consequence of losing. This is much too egalitarian and there are repercussions to such a system.
What happens when scores and standings are introduced? What happens when the children encounter an environment where there are objective winners and losers? How will the children handle this given that they have been raised in a system where there are no stakes when they play their games? Children won’t build character. They won’t build resilience, or toughness, or grit. They don’t learn the right way to win, or how to loose. The just play the game, without any sort of emotional growth because all of the touchstones have been rubbed out because they’ve been deemed as too sharp for children to deal with.
Winning has become demonized in this system. Declaring a “winner” or a “champion” is viewed upon as an evil term because by being declared the winner, it means that you or someone had to defeat a set of opponents. This is seen as a giant wrong for soccer playing children in Ontario under the age of 13 years old.
This is not a reflection of how the world works. And for this, I will use the world of personal injury law to give some context.
In a personal injury case, particularly at trial, there will be a winner, and there will be a loser. Sometimes, the results of the case will be mixed, such that you can call the case a draw, or a tie for a sporting soccer term.
The Judge and Jury will deliver a verdict. The verdict will tell the score; and that score matters. The score matters for the injured accident victim (the Plaintiff) as it reflect the amount of money they will receive in damages for their case. This is paramount to most Plaintiffs in a personal injury case. The verdict also matters to a Defendant. It will reflect the amount of money which they need to pay out in damages to an injured Plaintiff. The lower that amount is for a Defendant, the better. This amount is also paramount to a Defendant insurer in a personal injury case. It’s very clear that the score matters for both parties.
Imagine for an instance running a personal injury trial, where the system tells you that it’s forbidden to declare a winner of the case, or a loser of the case; or to announce the quantum of damages awarded, or not awarded. This is non sense.
Teaching children about winning and losing can be difficult. But, it doesn’t have to be. The harsh reality of winning or loosing a legal case would be difficult for a child to process. The best way this can be done is through a game, or through sport. So, it has always baffled me why the tool of teaching children how to handle winning the right way, and how to handle loosing the right way, is being stripped from them in the game of sanctioned soccer in Ontario. I have always struggled with this. The narrative is that sport teaching kids about life, and how to be better people off the field. But, are we really developing or sharpening those skills when we are sheltering the children from the reality of the real world? I don’t think so. What other way of gradually introducing kids to the realities of life other than through sport. Keeping in mind that 99.9999% of these children will not go on to be professional athletes.
So, when they get to trial, or when they actually have to compete, will they have the tools to cope with idea of winning or loosing. If they win, will they know how to act with grace and dignity? Of, if they loose, will they have a complete emotional breakdown because they’ve been brought up in a system where there are no losers and no winners either?
I can tell you that such a system does not exist at law. There are clearly defined winners. And there are clearly defined losers. The Judge and Jury are the referees and administer and announce the score for all to hear.
