Boy Scout Troop 325
Scoutmaster Minute
Nice Guys Finish Last
June 13, 2000
George Denise, Scoutmaster

The Olympics occur every four years. We are just beginning to hear about the Olympic Games scheduled for next year. The Olympics make me think about the story of Henry Pearce of Australia, who was competing in the single men's rowing race in the 1928 Olympics. He was leading the race when a duck and her string of ducklings came into view up ahead. They were on a collision course and Pearce reckoned that his racing shell would cut the string in two and probably kill a couple of the ducklings in the process, so he pulled in his oars.

When the ducks passed, Pearce again bent his back to the task. There's a happy ending to the story. Pearce won. Often, acts of good sportsmanship result in defeat, however.

Some of you may have heard of Leo Durocher, famous coach for the New York Yankees during the 50's and 60's. He had a lot of famous quotes, one of them you may have heard: "Nice guys finish last!"

That does happen some times. A couple of years ago in the marathon tandem kayak race at the world championships in Copenhagen, Danish paddlers were leading when their rudder was damaged in a portage. British paddlers, who were in second place and could have easily moved to first place, stopped to help the Danes fix their rudder. The Danes went on to win, and the British came in second, losing by only 1 second in a three hour race.

But there is a happy ending to this story too. The British kayakers won what many people regard as the highest honor in sports. They won the Pierre de Coubertin International Fair Play Trophy.

The trophy is named for the founder of the modern Olympics, and it has been awarded annually for the past 28 years to people in sports who have demonstrated nobility of spirit.

In the past, the trophy has gone to a Hungarian tennis player who pleaded with officials to give his opponent more time to recover from a cramp, and to a high school basketball coach who forfeited the Georgia state championship after he found out that one of his players was scholastically ineligible.

Do nice guys finish last? My experience is they occasionally lose in the immediate, but they usually do pretty well overall in life. How do you stack up?