Participation Trophies Not Needed

Over the weekend Pittsburgh Steelers Linebacker James Harrison noticed his kids got trophies for just participating in a sport. As an elite athlete and hard working dad, he didn't believe his kids deserved an award for just participating. This obviously caused an uproar over social media with parents from around the globe weighing in on the topic.

I don't have kids so I cannot speak about being a parent, but I did play sports as a kid and often times I never received an individual trophy. Typically, all players received a trophy at the end of the year for the teams accomplishments, but nothing that I specifically did.

Having not received an individual award never hurt my feelings, it didn't make me a bad kid. I quickly understood that you need to go above and beyond to be recognized, just putting on the pads and playing wasn't enough. I still feel like that was a good lesson to learn early on in life.

What do you think? Was the NFL linebacker too harsh?