Taylor Rudow's article on "The Freedom to Fail"

Last week I was watching the Lahaina Girls basketball team compete against other schools in a preseason basketball tournament. The Lady Lunas dominated the tournament and won the championship game by a 53 point spread. I realized that they were such a dominating force, not because of what they had, but because of the key element that the other schools had lost.
The majority of the newest generation has lost their freedom to fail. This is evident in the sports arena in Maui. Because children expect to be given everything, they no longer feel the need to fight for it. This was first obvious when I entered middle school, and I was informed that we would not be competing because the leagues were just for fun. Because they did not want the children with less experience to feel bad about themselves, they took away scoring and competition. This loss of competition made the athletes no longer feel the need to improve themselves because they no longer had anything to fight for. Because they took away the athletes’ ability to succeed, they also took away their ability, or freedom, to fail.
In high school, they took away the athlete’s freedom to succeed yet again. It was decided that our school would not have tryouts so that every student that wanted to be on the team was able to. This turned the varsity sports into a jumble of accomplished athletes and uninterested beginners. To top off the new rule, my coach decided that he wanted to give equal playing time to all of the members of the team. This took away the hard working athlete’s right to succeed because even if one put in more time than everyone else, they were not rewarded with more playing time or harder competition.
The Lahainaluna Girls basketball team is such a powerful force because they still have the freedom that the other schools have lost. They give their girls competition from an early age, and teach them that they have to fight for what they want. By giving the girls the freedom to fail if they do not work, they have also given the girls the freedom to gain tremendous success. Anthony D’Angelo said, “In order to succeed you must fail, so that you know what not to do the next time.” The Lahaina girls have been taught this lesson, and it shows in their game. The rest of us have lost our freedom to fail, and therefore, cannot hope to achieve optimum success.