<p>I agree with what you are saying, coureur, but this was not the case in this instance. Not only did the athlete not qualify for the higher levels of competition, he also had slower times and was NOT recruited by Div 1 scholarship colleges, as were about 10 boys at the school that year.</p>
<p>Again, he was a great all-around kid, so he deserved the all-around kid award, not the “Athlete of the Year” award.</p>
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:rolleyes: Nope, I sure don’t. Never said I did, nor did I defend that reference. Just pointed out that your attack on someone-or-other way up thread for knowing about something a kid posted on Facebook was perhaps unmeasured and unwarranted.</p>
<p>Nice argument, though…
… Stuffing arbitrary words in my mouth is obviously 100% better than anything I have to say. I’m glad to hear you’re done; I think you might have been losing track of those golden arguments just a little. :)</p>
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blossom, you’re not referring to me, are you? Because I didn’t call anyone’s daughter anything. As to TheGFG, that pile-on started in this thread long before she made any comments of that nature.</p>
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Been there, seen that, can relate, agree.</p>
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This.</p>
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I suspect TheGFG would place herself in that category about now. Just sayin.</p>
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Very, very true! Also birthdates and location-specific information – it’s kind of scary how much personal information some are exposing and how readily they’ll friend a stranger in some cases. When a kid friends my gaming account, I track down the parents and let them know. The personal account – most of us parents know one another pretty well already, so no surprises there.</p>
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I would tell the parents. Perhaps couched in terms like “Hey, not sure of the context here – maybe this was a sponsored party or something – but thought you might want to know just in case.” But I would definitely tell the parents.</p>
<p>ETA: Man, I can’t keep up with this thread anymore! Agree with Bay’s recent set of posts, though. 
Have a great day, evening, night, week, everyone!</p>
<p>Holliesue, if the pictures showed up on YOUR newsfeed, then feel free to let the parents know. The kids must be FB friends with you, or FB friends with your friends. The kids posted these pictures, so they must not be worried about who sees them!</p>
<p>First of all, the context of the tramp statement was that the students considered this girl to be that sort of person (and I already gave the reasons for why that was, which you can choose to believe or not), and therefore would not have voted for her for “Most Likely to Be” anything highly respected like President. Yes I used the word “tramp” and so I guess technically you could say I called her that, but the idea I trying to communicate was that she had a bad reputation among her peers. And frankly, “tramp” is by far not the worst of the words which refer to that behavior. I could be wrong because I don’t tend to need words in that category, but thought it was the mildest of the collection. </p>
<p>No one, including me, really cared about the fact the girl “won” the senior superlative, since it’s not a real award! I stated in the post that no one takes them seriously. The topic only came up because posters were discussing how the true popularity contest awards, like Homecoming and Prom court, are chosen and how the voting can be gamed. So I mentioned this situation and the vote changing.</p>
<p>So, please stop painting the scene falsely. You’re implying that this “award” was given in some formal setting, and that when this honorable girl received it, I judged her as undeserving, and labeled her a _________. And worse, you suggest that I did so because I selfishly believed my D deserved it more. If you cared to be fair and honest, you wouldn’t imply that was what happened because it most definitely didn’t. Please refer back to the post and refrain from misrepresenting my statements. </p>
<p>I think sending awards home would be nice, if the certificate or trophy or plaque came with an explanation of what the student had done that was deemed worthy of the honor.</p>
<p>Wait, what? No one takes the senior superlatives seriously? I was voted “Hardest Working” back in HS. If no one takes them seriously, does that mean I can stop working after midnight now? :)</p>
<p>Well, I’m shutting my computer down now. For the first time in a long time, I feel really freeee!</p>
<p>Seriously, TheGFG, hope you get through the next couple of rounds of Awards ceremonies in good shape. Maybe your daughter will even be awarded one (or more). I think that understanding the awards philosophy in advance is really the key to handling the whole situation with good grace. I think it’s toughest when there has been a change in the practices from one’s own generation to the next. And then it may change again, for the next generation after that.</p>
<p>I’ve belatedly (about as much so as possible) realized that very talented student athletes around here receive a lot of attention and praise in the local papers and on television. There’s coverage of their accomplishments on the field, when they sign with a college, etc.; sometimes even feature stories with family photos and interviews. It’s the sort of attention the average hs athlete would never get. This is just a small facet of the “your reward is being recruited at a school most people would sell an organ to attend” argument. OP, perhaps your d has had some of this; and if so, everyone in the community is already aware of your d’s exceptional achievement. They’re almost certainly wondering what’s up with the award distribution, too. Though, if they’re like the majority of posters here, they have their own reasons. They’re either befuddled, annoyed, hurt, or bored to tears, but probably barely registering anything beyond which awards their own kids received, or didn’t. </p>
<p>If you or your d are still sad after the last awards night (and your school is inhumane in having so many of them), go through her scrapbook together. :)</p>
<p>Thanks for the good wishes. I’m happy to report that D was not overlooked last night, and have no complaints about what she received. Yeah!</p>
<p>Unrelated to D, but related to her team, there was some mild nepotism with regard to the awarding of varsity letters in a borderline case. There were two girls who competed at the jv level for the majority of the year. Each ran in only one higher level meet. The varsity meet the first girl (soph) ran in was a big, state level event, whereas the other student (frosh) just competed in a conference level one and in fact, the decision to have her compete in that raised some eyebrows at the time. However, the frosh girl got a letter while soph girl didn’t. The frosh girl’s dad is on the booster club and runs the snack shack. It was questionable, some kids commented on it, but not too glaring. </p>
<p>The only other issue was a lack of consistency among the coaches about whether to spread the award wealth or not. There are team level awards, and overall athletic dept. awards. It seemed that if some coaches knew their top athlete (based on the objective criteria listed in the program like all-state, goal scoring, etc.) was getting a big athletic dept. award, then they’d give team MVP to someone else. Other coaches gave the MVP to that top athlete anyway. There was one team (not D’s) where the obviously most stellar girl did not get MVP, and you could see the surprise in the audience and in the faces of her teammates on stage.</p>
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<p>GFG- I’m happy to hear this.</p>
<p>These anecdotes remind me of when my 13-year old S got MVP for the local swim club team, the first year he was on it. For various reasons, it was also the ONLY year he was on it.</p>
<p>I actually felt bad for the other kids who worked hard as well, and were there for the long haul. But that summer this kid came out of nowhere, swam like crazy, and took the MVP. I guess the point I want to make is that even though these awards don’t amount to anything in the long run, at the time they mean a lot to the kids.</p>
<p>Also, way back in the thread I had made the point that when awards are given out for political reasons, sometimes the recipients and their parents feel embarrassed about it because they realize what’s going on. They didn’t volunteer to in order get something for their kid, and they certainly don’t want others to be slighted.</p>
<p>Well, when I walked past the frosh girl’s father, I said “Congratulations.” He flushed and said “I really didn’t think she deserved varsity.”</p>
<p>My D is not an athlete, however she played soccer for a few years starting when she was 7 or 8. She always won the “never missed practice” award. It meant something to her at the time, now she laughs about it.</p>
<p>In HS she got an “scholar athlete award” for participating in a no-cut sport during her senior year. It went to all students who were in a varsity team and had a gpa above 3.5: Again, she thought it was funny but she really enjoyed the sport.</p>
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<p>Ungracious on his part, and I hope his daughter didn’t overhear. What about simply saying “Thank you” to a compliment?</p>
<p>mpabon–even a no-cut sport requires hard work. And to keep up your grades while participating in extracurriculars…maybe it was easy for your D but for some kids this award would still represent high achievement.</p>
<p>No, his D wasn’t around. I simply reminded him that she had run in that big meet and therefore definitely deserved the letter.</p>
<p>C’mon TheGFG, you gotta give it up, even Sinatra had to change it to “The Lady is a Champ”.</p>
<p>The nepotism thing bites back. </p>
<p>When D was a freshman, all of the booster parents for her team were senior parents. So coach begged some of us to help out. One girl’s mom really stepped up, sophomore year she ran the snack stand and organized another fundraiser. Her D had an OK soph year on JV, then she got mono over the summer before junior year and had to miss the summer camp. The coach put her on varsity as a junior anyway (this in a program where 50% of the frosh get cut before JV, and 50% of JV gets cut before they make varsity) but she had a so-so season. When the season ended, the girl tried out for a club/travel team and got cut. One of her <em>best</em> friends commented, “Well, I guess her mom couldn’t buy her way onto the travel team.” The comment got back to the D… and that was the end of that friendship. I know the mother of the girl who made the comment, I have no doubt the girl was just copying what her mom said.</p>
<p>I try so hard to assume the best, maybe the best athlete award is for someone who is a team player not an individual star, maybe the character award is meant as encouragement. Who knows, I hope most people are honorable. I am not naive or stupid so I know that is not always the case. I also believe withholding an award is sometimes a punishment, maybe the powers that be don’t like the child’s attitude or the parent’s personality. Maybe they want to deflate what they percieve to be the arrogance of expectation, who knows? I have never had to hand out an award to anyone, hell I can’t cut anyone from a guest list! I will say as a former aspiring actress, mostly a waitress I know rejection!</p>
<p>Last night was our senior awards. It was awful. It seemed like all the students who do poorly in school got all the prizes. At our school, I guess, unless you are ranked in the 8 people, or at the bottom half of the class, you are screwed.</p>
<p>Good job and this is a top public high school too.</p>