I ran hurdles for a state championship team in high school, then again in college, and four years of 110-meter races teach you one thing: a clock does not care about your feelings. It does not check your privilege. It does not grade on a curve. You clear the hurdle in stride, or you eat the track. That lesson followed me through decades coaching youth football, rugby, and track, and a career spent evaluating risk for a living. It is also the lesson at the heart of the Patriot Games: this country was not built by people who were protected from difficulty. It was built by people who were tested by it.

The Patriot Games ran this week, August 9 through 11, at SPIRE Academy in Geneva, Ohio, part of the Freedom 250 celebration marking America's 250th birthday. One boy and one girl, ages 14 to 17, represent each state, territory, and several tribal nations in football, basketball, soccer, track, a revived Presidential Fitness Test, a boot camp circuit, and an obstacle course, competing for a $250,000 scholarship pool streamed live on ESPN, with a primetime ABC special August 13.

Some critics reached for dystopian movie comparisons the moment the Patriot Games were announced, which tells you more about how they view children competing than it does about the event itself. Nobody drew these kids' names from a bowl.........

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