December Sportsmanship Newsletter
Josephson Institute
December 7th, 2005

NEWS AND VIEWS:

School-Based Sports

Naming Rights in Public Schools: The Rust-Oleum Field Dilemma

"It`s the wave of the future," says Bruce Darrow, president of the Brooklawn School District, in New Jersey. He`s talking about the "ShopRite of Brooklawn Center," the gym at Alice Costello Elementary School in Brooklawn, which a local firm paid $100,000 to name after itself.

The trend of turning stadium names into ads began in the pros. Now it is expanding to cash-strapped high schools, and raising hard questions.

Recently schools in three Texas towns -- Forney, Tyler and Midland -- sold naming rights to their stadiums for over a million dollars each. In Florida, athletes at Everglades High School will soon play in Eastern Financial Florida Credit Union Stadium (price: $500,000).

And Vernon Hills High, near Chicago, has Rust-Oleum Field.

"It`s pathetic to have a Rust-Oleum Field at a public, taxpayer-funded institution," says Gary Ruskin, executive director of Commercial Alert, a Portland, Oregon, organization that works to curb advertising excess. "Schools exist to teach children to read, write, add and think, not to shop. So what are we teaching them with big corporate ads on civic institutions?"

"Why isn`t it called Taxpayers` Stadium?" says Alex Molnar, director of Arizona State University`s Commercialism in Education Research Unit. "Where else are you going to get a brick-and-mortar stadium worth $1.8 million named after you for $100,000? Basically what you have is taxpayers subsidizing Rust-Oleum`s advertising."

But some schools say there simply isn`t enough taxpayer funding. In Plano, Texas, high school students pay $100 a year to play sports. Hence the ad for Krispy Kreme donuts in the football stadium has caused little stir. "Our parents are appreciative," says Chris Ferris, Plano`s marketing chief, "because they know the alternative might be to drop some sports teams altogether or raise the fee to play."

Dr. John Kellmayer, superintendent of schools in Brooklawn, says, "I understand it`s a slippery slope. But we need the revenue. People say we went too far with our gym sign and I say, `Look, we did not even have a gym. Is it better to not have a gym at all, or is it better that we have one with a ShopRite sign on it?`"

Of course, slippery slopes have a desensitizing effect. As a result, the Game Plan for Amateur Basketball, most of which applies to all sports, urges caution with advertising, since it "tends to commercialize amateur sports programs, involves the athletic department in a continuous marketing effort and increases the likelihood that the institution will become dependent on volatile sources of revenue." [New York Times, 10/18/04; Chicago Tribune, 8/14/02; St. Petersburg Times, 12/17/97

High School Puts Character Above State Championship

Everything seemed to be going right for the New Mexico Military Institute (NMMI) football team in Roswell. It had enjoyed one of its best years ever, with an 11-1 record, and was set for Class 3A state championship football game on December 4. One victory stood between it and its first title since 1965.

Then NMMI learned that players had violated institute rules. As a result, Rear Admiral David Ellison, NMMI superintendent, decided that NMMI would forfeit its place in the game. It was a tough decision, but it was also pure character, since the essence of character lies in doing the right thing even when it costs more than you want to pay.

"The responsibility of living to the highest standard expected of an NMMI cadet rests with each cadet, whether on or off campus, throughout the institute`s school year," said officials in a written statement. They declined to say which rules the cadets had broken.

"Admiral Ellison is on our CHARACTER COUNTS! board," said Cla Avery of CHARACTER COUNTS! in Chaves County. "He`s been very supportive of Pursuing Victory With Honor. The entire institute is to be commended. It's a very difficult position to take."

Principle Four of the Arizona Accord states that athletic competition is a privilege, not a right, and adds, "To earn that privilege, athletes must conduct themselves, on and off the field, as positive role models who exemplify good character." The cadets forfeited that privilege. [Associated Press; thanks to Mr. Avery]

Movie Based on Coach Ken Carter Debuts January 14

Coach Ken Carter also knows how to make difficult decisions. In 1999 he benched his undefeated Richmond (California) High School basketball team for poor academic performance, and despite death threats he stayed firm. His story not only won national attention, but several team members earned four-year athletic scholarships, including his own son Damien, who received a four-year scholarship to West Point.

On January 14, Coach Carter will open in movie theaters. Oscar-nominated star Samuel L. Jackson will play him and Paramount will distribute the film. Mr. Carter is an original signatory of the Game Plan for Amateur Basketball, and a great inspiration in general, and we could use more movies about people like him. [See www.coachcarter.com for further information.]

College and Olympic Sports

In-House Psychologist Helps Oklahoma Athletes

Physical injuries aren`t the only kind athletes face. Anxiety and emotional turmoil can impair them as well. Now, in perhaps the start of a new trend, the University of Oklahoma athletic department has hired a psychologist to give players support.

Dr. Nicki Moore, a former athlete with a doctorate in counseling psychology, helps students with problems like eating disorders, depression and stress. She also works to heighten achievement, stepping in when a golfer needs focus or a basketball player flounders at the free-throw line. Hired in July, she has already seen over 60 student-athletes.

"We needed someone to help us with the everyday issues of life that an athlete faces," says Kris Glenn, president of the Oklahoma Student-Athlete Advisory Council and a senior on the track team. "The ups and downs of athletics take a toll on your mental state. We decided it`d be really good to have someone in-house and on staff that the door is always open to talk to."

"I view this as a proactive move," says Dr. Gerald Gurney, an associate athletic director at Oklahoma. "This is by no means a place where our student-athletes aren`t having a positive experience. We want them to have a better experience. These are problems athletic departments are dealing with everywhere across the country."

Mary Wilfert, assistant director of education research for the NCAA, said many universities had indicated a concern for the emotional health of student-athletes. Though some have sport psychologists at the campus medical center, Moore works full-time in the athletic department itself.

Kelvin Sampson, men`s basketball coach at Oklahoma and an original signatory of the Game Plan for Amateur Basketball, said, "Sometimes you feel unqualified. I`ve had kids where I`ve said, `I wish that I knew how to help them.` But I didn`t feel qualified to help."

Dr. Moore hopes other athletic departments will follow the lead. "Just the enormous demand for these services that has already been expressed since I`ve been here is proof enough for me that the issues are here," she said. "Absolutely, I think it`s a need. It`s been a need for a while."

Principle Three of the Accord says sports programs must enhance "the mental, social and moral development of athletes," and this emphasis on the internal well-being of college athletes advances this goal in an important way. [New York Times, 10/27

Professional Sports

Taking the NBA Brawl Seriously

Everyone has seen the tapes: Indiana Pacer Ron Artest hit by a thrown cup, racing up into the stands, other Pacers following, punching out Detroit Piston fans. The November 19 melee was the worst in modern U.S. sports history, and it highlights a problem now at flashpoint: player-fan hostility.

The players acted criminally. Hit someone because of taunts and you have committed battery. In addition to possible jail time, you must compensate the victim for medical expenses, pain and suffering, and other injuries, and you could pay punitive damages as well. Punching out another person is not just wrong, but idiotic.

Yet the fans incited this conduct. Without their barrage of venom and objects, this fracas would have remained just a sour incident. Fan misbehavior has also sparked other confrontations in pro sports recently, and it routinely degrades the sports experience for other fans in the vicinity. To take this problem seriously, we have to make fans act better.

How?

A big problem is alcohol. The drinking begins before games, at bars or tailgating parties, and continues throughout. It can culminate in incidents like that of September 19, 2002, when two drunk fans raced onto the field in Chicago, dragged Kansas City Royals coach Tom Gamboa to the ground, and pummeled him.

"Alcohol is almost always at the root of fan misbehavior," said Richard Lapchick, a sports sociologist and director of the Center for the Study of Sport in Society. "It`s consistent with other aspects of life, where the potential for conflict is exponentially ratcheted up by alcohol."

Moreover, sports fans are more vulnerable to it, since they binge-drink more than non-fans. The Harvard School of Public Health surveyed 14,000 college students and found that 53 percent of sports fans binged -- downed five or more drinks in a short time -- compared to 41 percent of male non-fans and 37 percent of female non-fans.

At a press conference, NBA commissioner David Stern said that the league is discussing cutting back on beer sales. One possibility is halting sales in the second half. The Artest brawl took place with 45.9 seconds left, at the point of maximum fan intoxication, and probably would not have occurred if spectators were sobering up.

There is certainly precedent for keeping fans from alcohol. For instance, in 2000, after Dodgers players battled Cubs fans in the Wrigley Field stands, Cubs officials reduced beer vendors by 10 percent and stopped serving in the sixth inning.

Economic pressures do work against this solution. Beer sales are immensely profitable and it`s not a fluke that ballparks have names like Coors Field and Busch Stadium. "Beer sponsorship is such a big-dollar component," Lapchick says, "it`s hard to imagine a professional league banning its sale. You might see a single owner take a stand despite the financial consequences, but it would probably take a death or a series of deaths."

Principle Five of the Accord says that sports programs should adopt -- and enforce -- codes of conduct for participants like spectators. And in this case true enforcement requires harsher penalties. Since athletes can`t respond to insults, some fans feel they have license to abuse them. "You can`t slap fans with $100 fines and let it go at that," said Eldon Ham, a sports law professor at Chicago-Kent College. "If those same people went to a political rally and threw beer bottles or cups and started fights, they would be charged with inciting a riot."

Other possible steps, noted in the October edition of this newsletter, are: 1) greater security, especially near known danger points, 2) a stricter definition of unacceptable verbal abuse from fans, 3) pre-game warnings against heckling, 4) an outlet for seething players, perhaps a process for notifying security about problem fans, 5) counseling for players on how to handle abuse, and perhaps most importantly, 6) learning sportsmanship in youth leagues, when it has the most impact. [Miami Herald, 11/29/04; USA Today, 4/17/03; Indianapolis Star, 11/27/04]

SPORTSMANSHIP TRIVIA TEST: The 1912 Artest

In 1912 a star baseball player dashed into the stands and viciously beat an abusive heckler. Told later that the fan lacked a hand, the player reportedly replied, "I don`t care if he has no feet." Despite this man`s fame, just three pro players attended his funeral. Who was he?

Answer below.


FROM THE GOLD MEDAL STANDARDS: Helping Parents Help Their Kids

Parents are the key actors in building not just character, but sportsmanship. Sports programs should support them as much as possible, and should give them explicit guidance to teaching their kids a healthy attitude toward sports. As Section 7.4 notes, that guidance should also caution them against common pitfalls, which include:

* Making unreasonable demands on the child, coach or program.
* Developing baseless dreams about their child`s athletic potential.
* Verbally abusing anyone in sports.

The Gold Medal Standards are a common framework of requirements that all youth programs should meet. To read about them, and the summit that led to them, go to:
http://www.charactercounts.org/sports/youth-sports-summit.htm 


FROM THE GAME PLAN FOR AMATEUR BASKETBALL:
Positive Cascades

Sportsmanship is all about the positive, and the more often warm, supportive acts occur, the more likely they will spur others. And one of the most important times for rewarding acts is after someone has shown good sportsmanship. Hence Section 2.4h says that teacher-coaches should "reinforce acts of good sportsmanship during games, at team meetings and during year-end banquets." Public praise can have a big impact, and sportsmanship awards at the end of the year can highlight athletes of character.

The Game Plan for Amateur Basketball is, as NABC executive director Jim Haney describes it, a "serious effort by many of the most influential people in amateur basketball to outline a realistic game plan to address some of the most serious issues facing the game." To read the whole Game Plan, go to:
http://www.charactercounts.org/sports/gameplan-basketball.htm 


THE ULTIMATE SPORTSMANSHIP TOOL KIT: 

The Ultimate Sportsmanship Tool Kit is an all-in-one resource to help athletic programs achieve sportsmanship and character-building goals. It covers everything from mission statements and codes of conduct to evaluation tools and ideas for rewarding players and coaches. Here is a sample:

Condensed Code of Ethics for Spectators

* Treat all players, teacher-coaches, referees and opposing fans as you would like to be treated.
* Respect all players, coaches, referees and opposing fans, and the integrity of the game.
* Model sportsmanship for your organization.
* Cheer your team, but don't jeer the opponents.
* Cheer good plays by either team.
* Be a fan, not a fanatic!

NOTE: The Tool Kit also has more elaborate codes of ethics, for parents, athletes, coaches and officials, organized by the Six Pillars of Character.

For more about the Ultimate Sportsmanship Tool Kit, go to:
http://www.charactercounts.org/Merchant2/
merchant.mv?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=CCMP&Category_Code=10 


SPORTSMANSHIP TRIVIA TEST: Answer

Ty Cobb

You must expect things of yourself before you can do them. -- Michael Jordan, American basketball great (b. 1963)

LAST MONTH`S QUESTION:

The Case of the Trick-Teaching Coach

You are a basketball player and your coach has taught the team how to illegally hold and push in ways that refs find hard to detect. What do you do?

1. Use these tactics in play. The other team is probably using them too.
2. Don`t use them, but don`t complain. This is a gray-zone issue, a matter of personal conscience.
3. Complain to the coach or your parents.

As usual, we received many interesting responses, such as:

Cheating of any type can when done over a long period of time becomes a habit. I would suggest to the young person to let their actions on the court speak for themselves and not cheat.

***

Life is tough enough without being a whistleblower.

***

While doing the right thing is desired, in the ideal world let`s be reasonable. Complaining to a coach about unethical tactics will most likely identify him/her as a whiner to the other kids, resulting in lower self-esteem. If the coach were an honorable person he or she wouldn`t teach cheating. Complaints will only result in the player being benched or blackballed.

***

Sometimes when you blow the whistle, so to speak, you cause more problems for yourself. I did something similar to this, and it cost me dearly. I do believe that one should stand up especially when a situation can cause harm to others! However, if the outcome outweighs the action, let your conscience be your guide!

***

The word "complain" is troubling to me. It has a negative connotation. I would like to see us teaching each other how to speak our truth with clarity and conviction yet without judgment and the whine that "complain" implies -- at least to me. Thanks!

***

It is extremely unlikely that one player complaining to the coach or to anyone else will have any benefit. The only possible way is to find other players and/or parents who are also willing to take a stand against cheating and complain as a group to the school administration

Be a CC! Community Builder

`Tis the season for giving and togetherness and thus a great time to give a gift to your community. Become an active CC! or Ethics in the Workplace sponsor and help promote ethics and character awareness in your community's schools, businesses, government offices and police cars. Here are a few ways:

* Give your local school or school district a variety of character awareness materials for use in the classroom curriculum.
* Help out a teacher by purchasing teacher tools such as the Good Ideas book.
* Sponsor a favorite teacher, Y counselor, or other youth instructor so he or she may attend the Institute's Character Development Seminar, a train-the-trainer certification course for educators, teacher-coaches, and youth workers.
* Give your local school a spending account so it may purchase an array of needed character development products, such as posters, pencils, books and videos.
* Purchase a spot in our next Ethics in the Workplace program for a local law enforcement officer and/or a city/county official.

Any of these gifts can go a long way to enhancing your local school- or community-wide CC! effort. For more information, contact us at (800) 711-2670 or visit our website at www.charactercounts.org


COMMENTARY BY MICHAEL JOSEPHSON

The following is adapted from Michael Josephson`s Gabriel Award-winning radio commentaries airing daily on our flagship station, KNX 1070 AM in Southern California, on American Forces Radio worldwide, and on other stations throughout the U.S.

"We Expect More Out of Adults"

Though 11-year-old Mark wasn`t much of an athlete, his dad Rick urged him to play youth baseball. Mark liked to play, but he was really hurt by some of the remarks of teammates and even parent spectators when he struck out or dropped a ball. Just before the fourth game of the season, Mark said he didn`t want to go. "I`m no good," he said, "and everyone knows it."

Rick urged him to stick with it. "Just do your best," he said. "That`s all anyone can ask and your best is good enough."Mark struck out his first two times at bat, and each time looked over to his father who struggled to look positive. In his last at-bat, Mark hit the ball solidly, the first time all season. It was a hard grounder to third and the play at first was close.When the umpire called Mark out, Rick went wild. "Kill the ump!" he yelled. "Are you blind or just stupid? If you can`t do the job, stay off the field!"On the way home, Mark broke a long silence, "Dad, you said that all anyone can ask is that we do our best." "That`s right son," Rick assured him. "But you did your best and I`m proud of you. That jerk of an umpire robbed you with a bad call." "I wasn`t talking about me," Mark replied, "I was talking about Billy`s dad. He was the umpire. I know he was doing his best, but you got really mad at him." Rick was taken aback, but he said, "Yeah, son, but he`s an adult and we should expect more out of adults."

Mark looked his dad in the eye. "That`s what I thought too. By the way, I was out."

Despite Rick`s good intentions, he didn`t set a very good example. We should expect more from adults -- more fairness and respect, more sportsmanship and more self-restraint. If your kids play sports be a model, not a problem.

This is Michael Josephson reminding you that character counts.