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You’re all winners, kids, because you tried. Especially you, Kenneth, even though you made four errors in right field and played in jeans because you left your uniform at home.
Ice cream for everyone!
Such is the attitude that’s ruining youth sports and, by extension, America, argues Bob Knight, who gave up coaching basketball but not being a hardass. If everybody wins, nobody wins, he says. There’s a word for that: a tie. Ties are for the weak, the wimpy and, of course, soccer.
“Good is the enemy of great because if we’re too easily satisfied, we lose our edge,” Knight writes. “The object here is to win. The first essential . . . is to learn after loss to eliminate those things that caused a loss.”
The former Indiana University coach’s new book, the aptly titled “The Power of Negative Thinking: An Unconventional Approach to Achieving Positive Results” (New Harvest), is out Tuesday. And it’s an antidote to America’s kiss-the-booboo Little League moms — and psycho bleacher dads, too.
Consider the Connecticut hoops coach who was forced out of his job last month by parents who felt he was not giving the benchwarmers enough playing time.
Weston High School’s Mike Hvizdo was fired after parents dug up and sent to school officials a nine-minute film in which he appeared 10 years ago, while in his 20s, called “Forbidden Fruit.” It wasn’t porn, or some kind of inflammatory zealotry. It was an R-rated, black-and-white throwaway art project that’s most controversial aspect was some raunchy dialogue.
Local paper The Hour called the parents’ dirt-digging a “modern day witch hunt” and a “blatant attack with the sole goal of getting the coach removed.” So that their kid can play bad basketball.
Sadly, this meddling for mediocrity is common in high-school sports, where “everyone gets a chance” has replaced “the best rise to the top.”
But if no one is punished for losing, no one gets better, Knight argues.
“You can accomplish surprising things if you ask questions and consult others about areas you need to improve,” he writes, responding to the axiom “You can be whatever you want to be” with this Knightism: “Sure, jump out of a tree and try being a bird. Know your limits. If you can’t do it, don’t.”
Knight’s broader point is that platitudes and the clichés of optimism are counterproductive to the growth of a young athlete — and anyone headed into the competitive workplace — whereas losing might shine a realistic light on deficiencies that might be acknowledged, avoided or overcome.
“What vulnerabilities do we have and what can we do to minimize them, to get around them, to survive them — and give ourselves a better chance to win? The fun comes with winning.”
Knight, 72, won three NCAA championships at Indiana through tough love. There’s a reason his nickname was “The General.”
If his team trailed at halftime, “I didn’t go in there saying, ‘Hey boys, we’re doing all right,’ because we weren’t doing all right. ‘We’re going to be okay’ — no we’re not going to be okay unless we change some things, and unless we change them drastically and quickly.”
Of course, Knight’s hotheadedness got the better of him at times.
He famously threw a chair on the court during a Hoosiers game to protest a referee’s call, as well as a brief, borderline choking incident against a player, which led to his dismissal.
In those respects, he’s no role model. But given the choice of a coach who demands more and one who let’s it slide, I’d wager most of his players would choose the former.
To those who would coddle their children in youth sports — from putting foam bumpers in bowling gutters to setting baseballs atop tees to, yes, not even keeping score — is it really benefiting the kids in the long run?
Or are you just setting them up for failure by not giving them the opportunity to manage defeat at early ages?
“Early failure is usually better than early success, because the lesson in humility lasts a long time and makes you more effective over the long term,” Knight writes.
“Faith in ourselves is a good thing, of course, but too much of it can make us believe we don’t need to change anything.”
mkane@nypost.com