The Ivy League Needs To Stop Handing Out Participation Trophies

Despite our loss in this year’s rendition of The Game — what has become a troubling trend during my tenure at the College — the outcome was not all doom and gloom. We were still crowned Ivy League champions!

Well, co-champions, that is.

For those familiar with college football and confused as to how a team can end conference play with two losses but still manage to finish atop their conference, welcome to the Ivy League! Without a conference championship game to determine which team earns the right to call themselves the best of the Ancient Eight, (almost) everyone can be a winner!

Literally. In each of the past two seasons, three teams were able to claim a share of the championship. In fact, mathematically speaking, up to four teams (representing 50 percent of all teams competing) can “earn” a share of the title.

At this point, why anoint these teams so-called champions? Why not just declare everyone a winner and hand out participation trophies instead?

Crowning a champion is meant to reward a team for their hard work on the field over the course of the year. It should recognize the efforts of one team as worthy of being called the best in the league — no ifs, ands, or buts. Having multiple champions completely undermines this purpose.

Winning a co-championship hardly means anything. Frankly, the word co-champion is itself an oxymoron. Winning a championship means being the best, and being the best necessarily implies that one is better than everyone else — not better than some, but on par with others.

Anointing two teams as champions defeats the purpose of the moniker, much less a full half of the league. The only difference between two and four co-champions is the number of teams that can disingenuously label themselves as “the best;” the true meaning of being a champion is lost as soon as the title is shared. Until the Ivy League changes its current system, when multiple teams are tied atop the standings at the end of the year, they should earn the title “not the worst” because that is all that their record has proven.

To be clear, I am not placing the blame at the feet of the football teams. They, more than anyone else, are the victims of the current “everyone can be a winner” regime. I imagine that they, like me, would love to have an Ivy League championship game at the end of the season. But inexplicably, the Ivy League refuses to give them — and us fans — what they want.

Considering that football is the most popular sport in America, it makes little sense for the Ivy League not to hold a football postseason — especially since every other sport has one. I can’t imagine how the Ivy League can justify postseason play in so many other sports but not football.

Some might argue that having a potential extra game tacked on to the end of the season might affect The Game, which has traditionally been the final game of the year. But I doubt that this would be the case — just because we have a championship game to look forward to does not mean that fans will be any less interested in beating Yale. It might actually result in increased fan interest, as beating Yale some years might be our only way into the championship game.

Holding an Ivy League championship game after the conclusion of the regular season would be far from a logistical impossibility. The game could be hosted by one of the Ivy League schools — as the Ivy League basketball tournament has done since its inception — or at a neutral site.

And if at the end of the regular season three or more teams are tied for the best conference record , we could institute a system of tiebreakers to determine who earns a spot. If other conferences can do it, how hard can it be — we’re the Ivy League, after all.

Until then, however, we’re going to have to be satisfied with our participation trophy. There’s always next year, I guess.

Henry P. Moss IV ’26, a Crimson Editorial editor, is a History concentrator in Eliot House.