Millennial here.

I never got a participation trophy, but I did once get a 4th-place trophy. I threw it away, because it reminded me of failure. Kids aren’t as dumb as you think they are. Many of them probably feel neutral or negative about participation/failure trophies as well.

https://www.jasonfeifer.com/episode/everyone-is-wrong-about-participation-trophies/

Jason Feifer: In short, they are both successful, and they pursued paths that were very much their own despite having both received participation trophies. The world is unpredictable, it is impossible for us to know how one thing impacts another. But we, and here I speak generally, as in all of us, the royal we don’t like unpredictability. It makes us uncomfortable, not knowing what will happen next, or how to control our lives, or how to shape our kids lives. And so we often reject the premise entirely.

Jason Feifer: We say “No, no, no, no, no, the world is very predictable. A leads directly to B, which leads directly to C. I can point at this one thing over here and know exactly how it will impact that one thing over there.” And this, I think, is how we end up with debates like participation trophies. Because if the world is totally understandable than fixing it is easy. And oh, how appealing that is, how comfortable and rewarding that is. We can identify bad things and then backtrack to their origins and then eliminate those bad seeds. Simple as that. And isn’t that what Jeff Walz wants us to do?

Jeff Walz: What’s that teaching kids? It’s okay to lose. And unfortunately, it’s our society. It’s what we’re building for. And it’s not just in basketball, it’s in life.

Jason Feifer: But what if that’s not true? I mean, actually, let me rephrase that. It isn’t true. I am flat out telling you it isn’t true. The real truth is to paraphrase Walt Whitman, “We contain multitudes.” External things influence us but we also influence external things. One person’s insulting participation trophy is another person’s satisfying reward. In the case of Tori and Hilary, I would argue that we’re hearing the stories of two very different women who grew up, learned about themselves and then their self understandings shaped how they felt about the trophy. The participation trophy didn’t singularly shape them. A world of things shaped them and they also shaped themselves and that is the reality of life and then a little tiny part of that was reflected off the participation trophy’s, tiny, shiny surface.

Jason Feifer: What is the true lesson of the participation trophy? It is this: winning happens in many ways, and it always has and it always will. And if you think that a stupid, little trophy has anything to do with any of this, well, then I guess I will give you a participation trophy for trying, but it doesn’t mean much.