Reward Gymnasts
with Awards
Since gyms and
non-profit gymnastics organizations seem to run the vast majority of gymnastics
meets, we are directing this diatribe disguised as an informational article
to them.
Hard Work, But Poor Awards
Let’s face
it. There are very few sports in which young athletes train as long
and hard as gymnastics. And at many, even most, of their competitions,
they are poorly rewarded for their efforts. We perhaps shall direct
another similar poor rewards related article to judges at some point but
for the purposes of this article we are talking about medals, trophies
and ribbons.
15 Awards for 120 Gymnasts
Current
rules allow sessions of 120 gymnasts of the same Level and Age group.
For that entire group, meet directors are only required to award 15 medals,
or worse, only 15 ribbons. (Incidentally, meet directors, save the
horse show ribbons for horses).
100 Gymnasts Get Zero Recognition
This
leaves, say, 100 gymnasts per session who receive no recognition at all
for their hours, months and years of practice.
Congratulations to Those Who Have Done a Great Job
Some
meet directors have done a great job rewarding gymnasts with great T-shirts,
goody bags, meet theme gifts and stuffed animals. Congratulations
to them. Keep up the good work and coaches, sign up for their meets.
Don't Just Do the Minimum
But
awards seem to have become an area where many meets have chosen to cut
expenses and award the minimum number of awards required. As the
non-profit hosts of a gymnastics meet, we should be assuming some of the
responsibility stated in our non-profit sports organization bylaws to “foster”
national and international competition.
Need Help, Contact Us
If you
cannot figure out how else to balance your meet budget from the many sources
already available, feel free to contact us and we will suggest some.
In the mean time, let’s talk about how we might improve our awards systems.
Provide Positive Reinforcement
Now
we realize that most good gymnasts are internally driven and meet awards
are external reinforcement, but there is no reason for our sport to provide
such poor reinforcement for athletes who are practicing everyday all year
round. It is also no credit to our sport to place so low in the awards
continuum especially as compared to other sports which are seasonal or
involve considerably less practice time.
Continued Next Page 
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