The ORIGINAL Trophy Essay
John is a slightly above average high school student in a slightly below average school district. Because of this, John is thought of as being very smart and is very good at taking tests. Since John is also an excellent basketball, football and soccer player. At first glance, most people would say that John should be a very happy young man. But, John is very troubled and annoyed by something. Because of all the activities John is in, he is constantly getting awards and prizes. For every activity that John competes in, he wins trophies. At first John liked these trophies, but after the first 25, he started getting annoyed by them.
John is not alone in his trouble. There are other people who dislike the uselessness and bulkiness of trophies. Let’s face it, trophies have no real use. Trophies sit on a shelf and say, “Look at me… I am a trophy” Anyone who sees a large collection is at first amazed. However, when they realize the hassle of living with 50 trophies in your room, they agree that it is not worth it. Aside from taking up room, trophies do nothing that a specially printed safety pin would do.
Why do we need at award so large? It would make much more sense for an award for a football competition to be a football. Sometimes it seems that schools want their name to be immortal, so they plaster it onto trophies. Perhaps to solve this problem, the football tournament prize could be a football with a special marking on it, symbolizing 1st place. Or for a math competition, perhaps a pen or pencil with writing on it would be more efficient. A football or pen is much more useful than a trophy, and they take up less room. Perhaps a pen is too cheap to give away as a prize. If you were to ask most high school students, who earn the majority of trophies, they would much rather have a $5 gift certificate. Plus, this method would actually be cheaper. The cheapest a trophy can be found for is about $7, which is 2 dollars more than the gift certificate method.
After about a year of accumulating trophies, John has about 50 trophies ranging in size, weight and stature. The trophies would cost, at an average of $9 per trophy, since some are larger and not the cheapest quality, about $450. That is a lot of money to waste space in his house. If the schools and clubs had decided to give a $5 gift certificate to John, instead of a trophy, then they would be about $200 richer from John alone, and John would be $250 richer. John would like this extra money and he could walk in his house.