Calling a Spade a Spade, by Paterson Burns

Why should anyone apologize for calling a spade?

You shouldn't.

Imagine that you have just won the championship game and the ref comes over tells you that you're going to have to share your trophy with the losers, because they tried....?

Did they win?

No.

Why then, should they be recognized for losing?

Wouldn't that defeat the purpose of trying, being the achievement of excellence, ie. winning, if you were willing to reward those who don't try as hard as those who win, with the same reward as those who try and succeed?

Sounds like a good way to engender and promote an entitlement society of whiners who expect to be rewarded or applauded for trying out for the team, let alone being on the winning team at the end of the season.

If someone quits the team, say a week before the final cuts from tryouts, before the season even starts,... should they be allowed to call themselves champions?

Or more rightly, wouldn't they be referred to as quitters?

Is calling a quitter, a quitter, a crime?

Me, I'd be awful proud to be on the winning team, holding that trophy and feeling the satisfaction that comes from actualizing goals, I can't see me handing over that trophy to the guy that quit the team before he could get cut, let alone play in a winning season with me and my teamates.