Sportsmanship can be as little as picking up the catchers mask if you see it lying in the mud after he/she has flipped it off to throw out a runner. Sportsmanship is simple, respectable, and necessary in both school athletics and physical education programs. As a college baseball coach, the first thing I try to teach my players is not only to respect the game, but everyone who goes out there and plays the game against you.

This month, we will celebrate National Sportsmanship Day on March 2. Get everyone in your physical education program involved in some sort of sportsmanship activity. Join the nation as we celebrate this day, together.

This section contains some great links that will teach us about sportsmanship. There are more than 10 reasons to be a good sport, but take a look at these top 10 from the Minnesota High School League. Have a great month, and remember to be a good sport in whatever you do.

Lloyd Gage - PELINKS4U Graduate Assistant
Secondary Section Editor

Ten Reasons to be a Good Sport!

10. Because taunting, trash talk and intimidating behaviors have no place in high school sports-or any level of sports.

9. Your admission is to watch the performances of highly impressionable 15 to 18 year old kids -- not a license to disrespect coaches, officials, players and other spectators.

8. You want others to treat you the way you want to be treated-and how many of us want to be treated with disrespect?

7. We need more positive role models for our kids.

6. People don't always remember the final score -- but they always remember the fan in Section 3 who made a fool out of him or her self.

5. Because coaches and officials are also teachers. Would you harass them in their classroom?

4. A national survey indicates kids play high school sports to have fun-not to be NUMBER ONE!

3. Develop a plan for crowd control at all games—home and away.

2. It's simply the RIGHT THING TO DO.

1. Because sportsmanship begins with YOU!

Source: Minnesota State High School League

"Excellence is not a singular act but a habit. You are what you do repeatedly."
-Shaquille O’Neal

"Football is a great deal like life in that it teaches that work, sacrifice, perseverance, competitive drive, selflessness, and respect for authority are the price each and every one of us must pay to achieve any goal that is worthwhile."
-Vince Lombardi

"I can’t play being mad. I go out there and have fun. It’s a game, and that’s how I am going to treat it."
-Ken Griffey, Jr.

"A good coach will make his players see what they can be rather than what they are."
-Ara Parashegian

"In the end, it’s extra effort that separates a winner from second place. But winning takes a lot more that that, too. It starts with complete command of the fundamentals. Then it takes desire, determination, discipline, and self-sacrifice. And finally, it takes a great deal of love, fairness and respect for your fellow man. Put all these together, and even if you don’t win, how can you lose?"
-Jesse Owens

"Nobody will think you’re somebody if you don’t think so yourself."
-African-American proverb

"The impossible is often untried."
-Unknown

"The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just."
-Abraham Lincoln

"Teamwork is the fuel that allows common people to produce uncommon results."
-Unknown

"Do not throw in the towel; use it for wiping the sweat off your face."
-Unknown

"I can accept failure. Everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying."
-Michael Jordan

"I ran and ran and ran every day, and I acquired this sense of determination, this sense of spirit that I would never, never give up, no matter what else happened."
-Wilma Rudolph

"It’s not the will to win that matters—everyone has that. It’s the will to prepare to win that matters."
-Paul "Bear" Bryant

"It’s not how hard you’ve pushed along the way. It’s having something in you to finish."
-Michael Jordan

For more quotes just like this visit here.