Shouts From The Stands: A World Without Ribbons

SwimSwam welcomes reader submissions about all topics aquatic, and if it’s well-written and well-thought, we might just post it under our “Shouts from the Stands” series. We don’t necessarily endorse the content of the Shouts from the Stands posts, and the opinions remain those of their authors. If you have thoughts to share, please send them to [email protected].

This “Shouts from the Stands” submission comes from John Lupton, a longtime year-round and summer league coach in South Carolina.

After our neighborhood team’s last summer league swim meet, my son Scotty now has a lone blue ribbon stashed in the top right drawer of his desk. In other drawers, possessions like a dinosaur headlamp, a kaleidoscope, and loose batteries all live among each other. The ribbon lives alone. Rent is no object for the ribbon, not in Scotty’s desk drawer, or in his head.

As a kid I tacked all my ribbons up to a bulletin board in my room. By the time I was 9 or 10, it was covered in blue with bits of red here and there. It hung behind the door, which generally stayed open and hid the display, but every now and then, I’d swing the door shut and take a peek at my record, feeling that the blues defined me and that the reds were somehow mistakes.

As a year-round coach, I loathed ribbons. After spending 30-plus hours on the pool deck over the course of a weekend, I’d wait around for an envelope full of colored garbage that I’d have to sort and distribute once I got back home. Sometimes, I’d conveniently forget. I wanted kids to value their effort, to believe in the importance of consistency and practice habits, to respect each other. To me, these lessons were the food for the soul that made the sport worthwhile, and dangling ribbons in front of the kids was like giving them ice cream before dinner.

Now, as a parent, I’m happy to see my kids smile when they walk away from a race with a blue ribbon in their hands. Watching from the volunteer tent as Scotty turns on the jets in the second half of his 25 free, near the bottom of my first beer, I slap my heat sheet against an open palm and cheer so the parents around me can hear: “Get that ribbon, son!” It’s a joke and an admission, an acknowledgement that yes, I want my kid to get a ribbon too. Only because that’s the world we live in, though, a world with ribbons.

Scotty was miffed after the first meet when he didn’t win one. He swam his race like he was supposed to. He did what the coaches asked. Everything was good. He was part of the team, which was all he’d wanted for the last two years. Then, the next day at practice, coaches started handing out ribbons, and he didn’t get one. Suddenly, his first meet went from a success to a failure.

Meanwhile, his older brother racked up. Turns out Cartter’s kind of fast at backstroke. He keeps winning and getting put in relays, which means more ribbons. He clips them in neat, color-coded rows to a board hanging on his wall. It is not hidden behind the door. Prominent position and geometric display aside, though, looking at it is not all that different from looking at the board in my old room. It primes my dopamine response system, and I want to cover it in blue. Blue ribbons are the Facebook likes of swimming, and it doesn’t seem to matter whether I earn them, or my kid does – I want them, lots of them. The realization should sicken me more than it actually does.

“We know you don’t like ribbons,” my fellow volunteer dad tells me with a roll of his eyes, “But the kids like them.” Yes, and smack addicts like heroin. Because one time somebody gave them some, and now, there’s no joy in life without it.

Yes, the ribbons lit a fire under Scotty. He dropped an absurd 16 seconds in the 25 free between his first and second meets, but what does that matter? He’s six years old. Two weeks ago, he was happy just being part of the team and learning how to swim and compete. Now, success is measured by whether or not he gets a ribbon.

I’m not saying I want to do away with the competitive aspect of the sport. Far from it. I say embrace the competition. Focus on it. Score the meets. Announce the winners. When a kid puts forth great effort, celebrate it. Just don’t attach a ribbon to it, because it cheapens the special joy that sports offer. How about a smile? A high five? A kind word? Imagine if we took all the time we spend handling ribbons and applied it towards teaching kids to be gracious to their opponents. Imagine a world where a six-year-old isn’t tempted to judge his efforts based on a flimsy piece of dyed plastic that he tucks away in his desk drawer. Would it really be any less fun? Would it not be better?

ABOUT JOHN LUPTON

John is a longtime year-round and summer league coach and a former age group coach of the year in his home state of South Carolina. He’s also a summer league swim dad. Despite his outward behavior as a parent, deep down he knows that kids deserve better than ribbons.