Freedom to fail is essential to success

If there is no freedom to fail, what are the chances of ultimate success?

Earlier this month, an eighth-grade student on the televised game show “Jeopardy” had accumulated $9,000 in winnings when he came to the final question of the competition. The lad bet $3,000 that he knew the answer to a question relating to Abraham Lincoln. He lost his wager when he misspelled the correct answer, which was supposed to be “emancipation.” The student spelled it “emanciptation.”

A basic rule on “Jeopardy” since the shows inception is that all answers must be spelled correctly. All contestants are apprised of that requirement and it has been enforced consistently across the board over the years by the show’s host Alex Trabek.

In this instance, following the disqualification of his answer, the student claimed that he had been cheated. “It was just a spelling error” the youngster bemoaned. Following the show, hundreds if not thousands of irate viewers texted or emailed messages condemning the show for enforcing the rules.

Did the young man actually lose any money? He was $60,000 behind the eventual winner and since the runner-up is awarded a flat $2,000, he took home the same amount of money he would have no matter how the judges ruled relative to his final answer. What the young man was complaining about was his loss of self esteem. He misspelled a word on national television and that made him feel bad, hence making it “unfair.”

Did the boy actually not know how to spell emancipation, or did he just get sloppy or over excited in the final moments of the contest? In any of the three scenarios just mentioned, there was a chance here for the student to receive a little education. Learning either the importance of knowing how to spell, or the importance of keeping your cool under pressure were good lessons to have been absorbed. Instead, he went home thinking “I was cheated!”

I thought a lot about this news story, and what happens when people or society want to remove any or all chances for someone to fail. What that kind of thinking does is to handicap our youth in their pursuit of actually being successful.

One of our national traditions that has had a lot to do with our national character is the importance of our youth sporting programs. At least, it used to be anyway.

Quite a few of our most successful leaders in the military, business or educational fields have had a background in athletics. In this venue, youths have had the opportunity to succeed or fail largely due to their own efforts or lack of same. Over the past few years, however, that tradition has been evolving or rather, it has been devolving.

Everyone who knows basketball knows that Michael Jordan, considered by most folks as the greatest player of all time, started out as a failure. Jordan was cut from his high school team as a sophomore because he didn’t show any promise. This so angered and motivated Jordan, that he poured so much time and effort into improving himself that he not only made the team the next year, three years later he was a starting guard on the national collegiate champion North Carolina Tarheels.

Many years ago Diane Miller was an eighthgrader out for track here in Pea Ridge. Though it was her stated intention to be a distance runner, her coach at the time told her that she “didn’t have it” and she was denied the chance to even try. This motivated her to the point that she not only became the Blackhawks’ best distance runner in the following season, she also became the best in her state classification, went on to win the Meet of Champs and was voted the best high school of the state regardless of classification. Like Jordan, she had the choice of bemoaning the injustice of it all or to put in the time and effort it took to succeed in spite of everything. She made the right choice.

A lot of youth sports have taken the scoring out of the competition in an effort to make everyone feel good about themselves. Our society at large has gone to great lengths to have kids feel good about themselves and for our kids to never feel that they fail or fall short. This kind of short-sighted thinking is a great tool if mediocrity is the ultimate goal.

As a teacher and coach, I will never say “good job” unless a good job has actually taken place. During the school’s open house last week, I heard a parent tell her child “good job” when the parent read the list revealing her child’s home room teacher for the new year. The child had nothing to do with her class assignment so it wasn’t really any kind of “job.” Of course, I am not denigrating the parent for saying what she did, but it seems we have gotten to the point where we tell a child “good job” for most anything. Is the child breathing? Good job!

It seems to me that rewarding a child for doing nothing minimizes the rewards when children actually accomplish something. Going further, I also believe that the only real way for a child to feel good about himself or herself is to know and realize he or she actually did something to be rewarded for.

The best thing about sports is that failing or coming up short is obvious and personal. When a child strikes out in baseball, instead of saying “good job” or finding an excuse to make the child feel better, what ought to be done is better teaching. Was the child moving his feet in the box, or not looking at the ball, or not holding and swinging the bat properly, the reason or reasons that resulted in the failure to make contact with the ball?

Sports are all about failure and the pursuit of improvement. No matter how good someone is, they can get better. No matter how fast someone is, they can get faster. Sports, and life itself for that matter, is about improving oneself through hard work, dedication and having a direction.

A 3-point shot in basketball if your foot is just barely on the 3-point line won’t count. A great end zone catch in football if you are just barely out of bounds doesn’t count. A home run ball that is just barely foul doesn’t count either.

History is replete with stories of people who ultimately succeeded after facing one failure after another. The failures were what fueled their ultimate success.

Take away the freedom to fail and you ultimately limit the freedom to succeed.

••• Editor’s note: John McGee is an award-winning columnist and sports writer. He is the art teacher at Pea Ridge elementary schools, coaches elementary track and writes a regular sports column for The Times. He can be contacted through The Times at prtnews@nwaonline.com. The opinions of the writer are his own, and are not necessarily those of The Times.