Matt13 posted:cabbagedad posted:Shoveit's belt story reminded me...
Fall before last, my wife and I traveled for the final game of son's college's fall series (also banquet weekend, I think). Of course, this pits teammates against each other in a very competitive environment. There is meaningful reward for the winners and consequences for the losers.
Immediately post-game, we were surprised to see son handsomely rewarded for MVP of the series - new trainers, a signed bat from a high profile guest and some other stuff. Did others not try as hard as he did? Very apparently not. Did others feel cheated? Sure didn't look like it. Were parents of the losing team butt hurt? Hardly. Oh, and BTW, the split teams wear different uni's. Which team gets to wear the favorite set? No idea and none of them seemed to care. But they sure were motivated to compete. LOTS of intentional divide among the team with this structure. Well, what do ya know, after some post-series rubbing, it really seemed to bring them all together.
We got to experience that. These guys were all VERY motivated by the structure of being pitted against each other in competition and by the carrot of reward and consequence. And, guess what. Almost every college program in the country holds some version of this same event every year.
Oh, and no one seemed to mind when he wore his new trainers, that were just a little different than everyone else's.
I've had the privilege of working several of these series at the end of fall ball. It's like a rivalry series without the bad blood and some of the best times I've ever had. If they think you've missed a call, you are going to hear it--and usually it's with things they've been practicing.
Son's high school recently played World Series - two teams picked by senior captains - which was best of three. Winners got steak and losers got dogs at the cookout afterwards. Let's just say they got after it and it wasn't about the steak.