You Lose!

What ever happened to the phrase, "second-place is the first to lose"?
I think that lessons need to be learned in life, such as, "life isn't fair," "no, you don't always get what you want," and "you lost...you didn't try hard enough...you need to work harder...etc." (There are many other "lessons" to be learned in life...but, for this posting, my list is sufficient.)
I think that it's ridiculous that, in childhood sports, everyone walks away with a trophy. Or, that "everyone" wins. NOOOO!!!! That's a bunch of crap. If I don't, or if anyone doesn't, try hard enough, they shouldn't win. In fact, if they don't try, there shouldn't be any "positive" encouragements, but instead the likes of, "hurry up," "get going," and "try harder," should be used. Our frickin culture is putting into establishment a sense of entitlement!
It's so bad that even on the state level, prep. football teams are being punished for being good. In Connecticut this past week, the football committee that governs high school sports decided that they are going to begin to penalize teams that are good. What??? That's crazy. Sure, a team really running up the score can be seen as cocky, or mean, but if your team can't cut it, should that be the other team's fault? NO!!!! Life isn't always fair, if you're playing against a better team, and they beat you, they beat you...live with it.
But no! Instead, we need to make "everyone" feel good about themselves by restricting those who excel from those who settle for mediocrity, or less! So, we are then creating a climate that says that mediocrity is okay- as long as you "tried," everything's okay...bull! I know that I'm not the best at a lot of things, I wasn't the best at a number of things that related to Track and Field Day in Elementary School...but I still tried, I still competed. Some things I became pretty good at, and I was rewarded with ribbons (I think that I still have them). Some of those ribbons said 1st place, others said 5th place...but if I didn't get one, I knew that I had to work harder...that's the only other option. I wasn't entitled to get one simply because I showed up, that's a load of crap. Sure, participation is good...but we should only reward those that excel at the sport they are in. You don't see at the Olympics all of the athletes that participated in an event on stage, you only see those who won- first, second, third...that's it! No entitlement to those who tried!
We are killing our sense of drive in this country, via the monopolized school system ruined...run...by our government. We need to help those kids who do well by helping them with their gifts. For those other kids, the ones who don't win, we need to tell them to suck it up and work harder!