Learning that Nice People Can Finish First

Even as four professional basketball players were being suspended for brawling with fans in Detroit, the Irvine Boys & Girls Club sponsored a day of nonviolent games Saturday to show kids they do not have to be aggressive to walk away winners.

The two events were coincidental, but Friday’s brawl involving the NBA’s Detroit Pistons, Indiana Pacers and spectators would have been the perfect tale to illustrate the point counselors were trying to make.

But the 12 preteen youngsters who signed up for checkers, foosball and cup-stacking were not basketball fans. The fight was news to them.

“I’m just here to play games and have fun,” said Julia Cannata, 9. “But I feel bad that my brother lost.”

Julia and her partner had just beaten her brother, Daniel, 6, and his partner in a spirited game of foosball.

The day included another incident in college football that also could have been a learning tool. While the youngsters were pledging not to “let violence, anger and hostility be my forms of entertainment,” Clemson and South Carolina players were engaging in a fourth-quarter brawl that resembled a European soccer riot rather than a college sporting event.

In Irvine, the youngsters were enjoying noncontact games that were nevertheless competitive. But even nonviolent games have winners and losers. Some members of the team that lost the indoor relay race, where they had to balance a jelly bean on a fork, were clearly disappointed.

“They are learning two things -- how to lose graciously, and that you can be competitive but not resort to violence,” said Elizabeth Pechs, representative of CMY Multimedia, a Spanish software company that helped sponsor Saturday’s games. “Losing can be a character builder.”

Despite the small number of children who signed up for the day of nonviolent games, club director Gretchen Long was not disappointed and said she hoped to make the event an annual one.

“These kids are going to be our core group. We’re going to use them as ambassadors of nonviolent games,” Long said. “They will share this experience with their friends, and we hope to get the schools interested in the event next year.”

Long also hoped that the idea for the event will spread to other U.S. cities, and eventually a day will be set aside nationwide for nonviolent sports competition.

The concept for a day of nonviolent games originated in Spain with CMY, which manufactures educational computer games for children. Saturday’s games were also sponsored by Ribbon of Promise, a program to stop school violence, and the M.K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence in Tennessee.