Remember end of the school year Field Day? Though physically active as an adult, I wasn’t athletic as a kid and didn’t go home with many ribbons. Let’s just say that when it came time to pick teams in P.E. I was usually one of the last two kids chosen, beating out the fat kid for last one standing. Even so, I always looked forward to Field Day even if I never got a prized blue nylon strip.

These ribbons, however, are becoming a thing of the past. Field Day has changed considerably over the succeeding decades a Denver Post article recently reported. Schools are moving away from awarding individual ribbons at these annual events. Just retired Jeffco Public Schools physical education teacher Doug Bierzychudek was one of the last to run his Field Day like a track meet with the competitions I remember like the 40-meter dash, hurdles, the three-legged race, and the high jump. In the afternoon, he held non-competitive activities that promoted teamwork, effort, and love of physical activity.

“I just couldn’t let the true competition die. My Field Day presented real-life situations: Winning and losing. Welcome to the real, silly world that we live in,” Bierzychudek told The Post.

Most Field Days now are comprised of non-competitive physical activities.

“It’s fun competition now, like your family playing fun games in the backyard. We don’t have to give out ribbons and establish dominance in the process. Our focus in physical education is and should be in helping people discover their passion for lifelong physical activity, and Field Day is supposed to be an opportunity for a fun reflection of that,” Joe Deutsch, the president of the Society of Health and Physical Educators and a professor in health, nutrition and exercise sciences at North Dakota State explained.

This everyone-gets-a-trophy philosophy that rewards effort, attitude, and teamwork is not without value, but it does communicate a message that individual talent and competition don’t matter. Coming from someone who in fourth grade had no individual talent on the field whatsoever, I must insist they do. Competition on the field engages students and gives those with physical talent a chance to shine. For a subset of students, this opportunity for engagement may be essential.

I just finished the book Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What To Do About It by Richard V. Reeves. This is not the first nor will it be the last book describing the challenges facing men in the modern age.

Boys start out behind in reading and writing, while performing only slightly better than girls in math. Later in their schooling, they are less likely to take Advanced Placement courses, graduate, go to college, study abroad, or earn associate’s, bachelor’s, master’s, or doctoral degrees than young women.

Some of those who were academically disengaged as youth will remain disengaged as adults from career, marriage, fatherhood, friendship, and community ties. In the end, men make up the vast majority of deaths of despair—overdose, alcoholism and suicide.

What does this have to do with Field Day? Physical competition has historically been a way to harness the male testosterone-fueled drive in the pursuit of excellence. While young women benefit as well from sports and competition (I earned plenty of trophies in nerd “sports” like chess and oratory in high school), I would argue that young men need it, especially those who would never enter a Science Olympiad.

Reeves recommends starting boys a year later in kindergarten to enable them to catch up in literacy. While this would put boys on more equal footing with their female classmates academically, it does not fulfill the need for greater engagement and connection to school.

I can’t help wondering if the philosophical shift in P.E. towards less competition, paired with the reduction of vocational classes, and more time in front of a computer screen, has had a cumulative disengagement effect on a subset of vulnerable male students. I could be wrong, but the question is worth asking.

Krista Kafer is a Sunday Denver Post columnist.