Walking the Talk of Sportsmanship and Character

written by Bill Utsey, Director of Athletics, Greenville County Schools, Greenville, South Carolina

As a district-wide athletic director, I meet at the beginning of each season with sports coaches for all of our fourteen high schools and eighteen middle schools. One of the main phrases I use and emphasize with them is, "We are an educational endeavor!" This is followed with an explanation of what this means and what our coaches' main mission is as an interscholastic athletic coach. We all, who coach in schools, know that one of the main reasons school sports exist is the educational experiences we plan for and provide to our participants. This is uniquely different from club sports teams that are now so popular and, unfortunately, so important to those young athletes seeking to or believing they will continue their athletic careers at the college level.

School coaches are always touting the educational values taught at the high school and middle school level in their sports programs. The important educational mission of our school sports programs is always talked about, but are you really walking the talk? The objective of this article is to show you specific ways you can provide the leadership and the opportunities for teaching sportsmanship and character in your program.

Walking the talk of educational athletics first takes personal leadership from the coach. Personal leadership mandates a set of core values built on a firm foundation of beliefs that incorporate high moral and ethical standards and educational ideals. The following are examples of belief statements expressing the purpose and values of interscholastic athletics:

• The extracurricular activities program is for all students.
• Extracurricular activities are an integral part of the total education program and a unique part of the American high school experience.
• Extracurricular activities teach students many invaluable, intangible traits - necessities for productivity in our society - such as, but not limited to, self-discipline, personal commitment, loyalty, sportsmanship, teamwork, the value of preparation, and a hard work ethic.
• Participation in extracurricular activities enhances student academic performance and school attendance.
• Extracurricular activities have a positive effect upon the participant's self-image, mental alertness, social competence and ethical awareness.
• The spirit of competition and the will to excel - necessary elements associated with extracurricular activities - are valuable to the development of a healthy mind and a productive American citizen.
• Extracurricular activities are a wholesome equalizer because individuals are judged for what they are and for what they do, not on the basis of the social or economic group to which they belong.

Actually, the above belief statements are those of our schools' athletic directors that were put together after a lot of discussion and debate. What, however, are your personal beliefs about what you do and what your mission is as a school athletic coach? Have you written them down? This is a necessary step if you are to be the strong leader your athletes need and, quite frankly I believe, are expecting from you as their coach. Furthermore, what exactly are your core values? Core values are the one-word traits that describe your personal character and the traits you base all of your teaching and coaching upon. Examples of core values may include: love, integrity, honor, teamwork, selfless service.

The premise set forth above is that before you can begin to make your coaching an educational experience for your athletes, you must have a set of core values and a number of beliefs you truly believe to be what your mission is as an interscholastic sports coach. This is the first step of personal leadership that will, by example, show through to your athletes as you coach.

After you have compiled a set of core belief statements and values, you are ready to be a leader for your charges. You can go a step further by putting together a mission statement that specifically gives you a clear direction for where you believe your coaching should be focused. A mission statement may be one to three or four sentences, but can be a short phrase such as, "Educate, Inspire, and Empower through athletic competition."

All of the above will be your teacher-coach compass - morally, ethically, and educationally - for all the decisions and actions you will take as a coach. Furthermore, it will be the inner motivation for you as a coach to provide the "education plus" of what high school sports are all about.

Although different sports may offer different kinds of learning opportunities for their participants, they can all be categorized as life success skills. Let us now look at some of these skills that can be taught through sports participation.

• Playing by the rules (PBR) - There are rules of the game and rules of society (written and unwritten). This fundamental principle of "PBR" as a concept to be learned is often overlooked. It is simply one of right versus wrong. It is probably the most learned social and citizenship lesson taught through sports, and it is mostly assimilated subconsciously. Coaches hardly ever mention this critical life lesson. As our world is becoming smaller, through technology and population growth, PBR is becoming more and more critical to man's survival. Any civilized society relies heavily on this principle if it is to survive.
• Cooperation (Teamwork) - without question, this is the number one trait companies look for in an employee. Even in individual sports like track, cross country, golf, tennis and wrestling, teamwork can be emphasized in a big way.
• The Hard Work Ethic - a uniquely American life skill and one that almost all coaches feel they do indeed make the effort to emphasize to their students whenever possible.
• The Value of Preparation - like PBR above, this critical life skill is hardly ever directly emphasized by coaches but assimilated through the experience of playing the sport. If you coach though, and you expect to be successful, preparing your athletes and your team for competition and each of your opponents is a must if you are to be successful. There isn’t a job that I know of that does not require this important value and skill. From sales people to construction workers, preparation is the vital ingredient for productivity regardless of the product being made, or the trade or skill needed to produce it.
• Civility and Respect for your fellow man - this phrase alone describes sportsmanship. Literally defined by Merriam-Webster as, "Conduct becoming to one participating in sport," sportsmanship is fairness in one's relationship to others, whether he or she is a teammate or an opponent. Sportsmanship is civility and respect on the field and courts of competition. How one reacts to winning and losing and, more specifically, to both good and bad things that happen to them in social situations is to be civil and respectful. In a game or an athletic practice, reacting to winning or losing and good or bad in a civil and respectful manner is sportsmanship.

These are just a few of the many life skills that can be learned through participation in interscholastic athletics. How can you make teaching these skills a much more important part of your coaching? Of course, we have covered the first necessary step of personal leadership above. The second step is to make teaching life skills an objective of your coaching at the beginning of each season. Like belief statements above, have you written down or even put any thought behind making your coaching a critical life skills teaching tool for your student-athletes?

There is no better example of how this is done than through the book Season of Life by Jeffrey Marx. A must read for all coaches, Marx chronicles a high school football team and what their coaches do every day and week of the season. Read this book to see for yourself how a coach can walk the talk of teaching life skills to your players. Go a step further and read Inside Out Coaching by Joe Ehrmann (who Marx actually followed in Season of Life). Ehrmann, better than this article, explains in detail how you can walk the talk of teaching character and sportsmanship through your coaching.

Another way of teaching or reinforcing the life lessons your players are exposed to in sports is to use those special times when someone or something positive or negative has occurred during practice, games, or during the season. These are what we coaches call the "Teachable Moments" used all the time to drive that special life lesson home to our student-athletes. When you notice that moment, when one of the core values of life has either been exhibited or compromised, is exactly when you stop coaching and begin your teaching of character and sportsmanship.

However, if you do not have a clear set of core values, or believe that interscholastic athletics is indeed educational athletics, then you will never notice the teachable moments or act upon them for the benefit of your students. Deep down inside the soul and mindset of every interscholastic coach should be the mission of educational athletics. The purpose of this article is to get coaches to find, discover, and then grow this mission.

There are a number of resources today's coach can use to grow the mission and purpose of educational athletics. Below are some that I recommend strongly:

1. NFHS Learning Center – offers a full curriculum of coaching courses developed by the National Federation of High Schools. Among them are Sportsmanship (a free course), Fundamentals of Coaching, Coaching Sports in Middle Schools, The Role of the Parent in Sports, and Teaching and Modeling Behavior. All of these will show you the many ways of how you can walk the talk of teaching character and sportsmanship.
2. Ideals SALT Program – This website presents a terrific program that offers a real curriculum for developing leadership skills through your sports programs. Supported by Walmart, Ideals SALT is one of the fastest growing leadership training curriculums for young people today.
3. CoachforAmerica.com – developed by Joe Ehrmann, Coach for America promotes and advocates for a healthier environment for the development of boys into men and girls into women through sports programs. The website offers a number of video presentations and talks by Joe Ehrmann himself, as he promotes character education through sports.
4. Pursuing Victory with Honor – Developed by the Josephson Institute, this program gives coaches the tools to teach character through sports. The Pursuing Victory with Honor program has been adopted by the Arizona Interscholastic Association as a basis for teaching character in all of its high schools sports programs.

We are educational athletics…indeed, we are an educational endeavor. Find out more how you can walk the talk of teaching character and sportsmanship in your sports program.

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