Participation Trophies For All!

Does anyone remember Kerri Strug?

A quick search for "Kerri Strug Simone Biles" shows that a whole lot of people remember her, of which this writer is fairly representative:

The culture of celebrating failure is hardly new. As I thought of Simone Biles' bailing on her teammates to "focus on her mental health", Kerri Strug was the obvious contrast, but I also remembered the "Hainan Island Incident", in which an American spy plane, crippled in a collision with a Chinese fighter, decided to . . . land on the target of its surveillance.

On the one hand, I don't want to sound judgmental. On the contrary, I totally understand how the aircrew, looking around at their full complement of sensitive intelligence-gathering apparatus and information, deciding they saw nothing worth dying for. That was roughly my attitude towards ISAF.

But this was just embarassing:

The crew of the EP-3 was released on April 11, 2001, and returned to their base at Whidbey Island via Honolulu, Hawaii, where they were subject to two days of intense debriefings, followed by a heroes' welcome.[18] The pilot, Lt. Shane Osborn, was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for "heroism and extraordinary achievement" in flight.

Likewise in the case of Miss Biles. There needs to me some space between the realization that not everyone, even on whom we place a lot of hope and expectation, will rise to meet extraordinary challenge or undertake extraordinary self-sacrifice, and pretending that the failure to so rise and undertake is somehow itself heroic. We should be able to recognize that Biles and Osborn choked, as the saying goes, as would you and I under similar circumstances. No judgment. But no praise either.