There is nothing wrong with , not striving in sports. It just doesn’t work well when you are on a team because most of your teammates and their parents , do want to win. That’s not a good environment to just be in it for socializing and exercising.
I am not too worried about competitive sports success being necessary for life. There are lots of things kids can grow up on. I just don’t want my kids wishing I had helped them more. We do talk about it , I more or less think is is balancing itself out. I don’t truly think it makes or breaks people and it may harm as many as it truly helps. There are a lot of kids who do value sports more than academics even in grade school and few of them will ever go very far. Most won’t go any farther than leagues that they essentially buy their way into. With large high schools a lot fewer will play so most city kids are done early as far as being any kind of a big shot. Lucky kids who have a senior class of 40 and get to do 5 sports, I guess. Like SDRealtor said there are a lot of great ways to exercise if the positives of competitive sports can’t compete in your child’s eyes.