Kobe Bryant Had The Best Answer For What Kids Should Do With Their Participation Trophies

Kobe Bryant, as one can imagine (just look at the video below), much like Michael Jordan in his day, was one of the most competitive athletes on the planet. So when his daughter and her teammates took home 4th place trophies from a basketball tournament he decided to have a little talk with them.

Now Kobe isn’t the first athlete to say that participation trophies are stupid. NFL linebacker James Harrison, not surprisingly, told his kids to return theirs.

NFL running back DeAngelo Williams also returned his daughter’s participation ribbon, which she then followed up with a first place finish.

So, yeah, Kobe isn’t alone here, but his take on participation trophies was a little bit different than Harrison and Williams’ stances. Instead of returning the trophies, he told his daughter and her teammates to keep the trophies as a reminder.

“I said, ‘Well listen, you get the fourth place trophy, you go home, you take the fourth place trophy, you put it up right where you can see it,” Bryant says he told the kids. “And when you wake up in the morning, you look at the trophy, you remind yourself of what you’ll never win again.”

Bryant then followed that up with another tweet that was absolutely spot-on…

If we don’t teach our children the fun inside of the process of winning AND losing then what are we teaching them? #play #learn #grow.

Listen to the Mamba, kids. He knows of what he speaks.