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Column: Harrison Fumbles Away a Life Lesson for His Sons

James Harrison made his kids give their trophies back.

There's no reward, the Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker insisted, just for showing up.

Sorry, James, you got that one wrong.

Rest assured, his 6- and 8-year-old sons will get plenty of experience dealing with failure over the course of their lives. They'll come to learn soon enough what a dog-eat-dog world it is out there. No need to deprive them of this bit of pride and accomplishment, even if they received their trophies merely for taking part in a camp.

We'll take that over the alternative, the win-at-all-costs mindset on display at Friday at the Little League World Series, which endured a cheating scandal just last year, where there's never a shortage of overbearing parents and 11- and 12-year-old kids potentially ruining their arms with curveball after curveball.