High school sports have never been about fairness. If they were, everybody would come across the finish line at the same time.

Short, stout fellows like me would not be seen as having any kind of advantage over athletic girls. But I have never been any good at sports. I did participate. I ran in cross-country races with girls and was handily beaten by 90% of them! Was that fair? I tried hard! And I went back over and over without thinking I could get any sympathy for my physique. I was a male; I was supposed to have the advantage.

High school athletics are not about being a winner or loser. It would have been an awful lot of fun to have won something. But it never happened, and I survived to be 66 and have had a pretty good life.

Ninety-nine out of 100 kids playing high school sports won’t win. I’m more concerned about their development as human beings than I am by the rare plastic trophy sitting on a dusty bookshelf.

When I was in high school, during sporting events, we all sang along with Freddie Mercury (an openly bisexual singer) to the song “We Are the Champions.” It was a time of reprehensible homophobia, but no one questioned the lyric as Freddie included himself in the words: “We are the champions, no time for losers, for we are the champions, my friend.” His song is about the contest, not the winner, and we all knew it.

Marshall Rolerson
Waldo