IN THIS ISSUE:

FRONT ROW

Youth- and School-Based Sports: Coach Dismisses Players for Hating Him
Professional Sports: Cheaters Never Prosper – Except in Sports
Googling With: David Beckham
Jocks Behaving Badly:
    • If Dogfighting Is Illegal, Why Isn’t the Suicide Race? …
    • Former Major Leaguer Swings a Mean Bat in the Minors …
    • Wrestlers’ Protest Spells Defeat …
Jocks Behaving Exceptionally:
    • Hank Aaron’s Classy (and Precise) Congratulation …
    • Middle Schoolers Inspire Community Off the Field …
    • Wrong Ball Leads to Right Decision …   
Michael Josephson Commentary: Hall of Fame Character
Josephson Institute Happenings


SIDELINES

Announcements
Trivia Test: Match These Women With the Sports Each One Played
Sportsmanship User's Guide: Recruit for Character
You Make the Call: Who Is the Greatest All-Time Home Run Hitter?
Principle of the Month: Be a Teacher/Coach
Say What?
Upcoming Seminars

FRONT ROW

YOUTH- AND SCHOOL-BASED SPORTS

Coach Dismisses Players for Hating Him

In a recent court decision that raised more questions than it answered, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled against four former Tennessee high school football players who sued their coach after he kicked them off the team for circulating a petition against him.

In the document, the players alleged that he struck them, used inappropriate language, degraded them, and threw away college recruiting letters addressed to disfavored players. They intended to submit the petition to the administration after the season.

The coach found out about it first, however. He demanded each signee apologize. Those who did remained on the team. The four who didn’t were dismissed. They sued, claiming their First Amendment rights had been violated.

The two-judge majority ruled in favor of the coach, citing a Des Moines precedent that allows school officials to restrict student speech that is "reasonably likely to substantially interfere with the requirements of appropriate discipline." The players weren’t being denied an education or restricted from exercising free speech, the court said, only an opportunity to play football -- a voluntary extracurricular activity that they had no constitutional right to do.

No problem with that. The questionable aspect was characterizing the defendants as disgruntled athletes giving their coach some lip (which didn’t appear to be the case and is not protected) instead of as whistle-blowers attempting to report wrongdoing and misconduct (which is protected).

We're interested in your opinions on this issue. Send your comments to CharacterCountsSports@jiethics.org and we'll publish them in our next issue..

[http://sports-law.blogspot.com, 8/4/07]

PROFESSIONAL SPORTS

Cheaters Never Prosper – Except in Sports

A quick glance at this month’s professional sports cheating ticker:

Baseball: You name it
NFL: Steroids
NBA: Dirty or racially biased ref(s), flopping players, allegations of playoff tanking
Tennis: Suspicious gambling activity; players contacted to fix matches
Golf: Enhanced equipment debate, allegations of performance-enhancing drugs
Boxing: Unregulated, longtime allegations of match and ratings fixing
NASCAR: Rules violations
Soccer: Dirty refs, match fixing, flopping players
Cycling: Doping
Track & field: Doping
Horse Racing: You name it
Sumo: Allegations of match fixing
Boston Marathon: The finish of 29 runners was questioned this year

Despite seemingly endless efforts by professional sports organizations to rein in athletic cheating, incidents and severity of unlawful activity and gamesmanship are increasing. A recent ESPN.com poll revealed that 80 percent of respondents believe pro sports will not be able to rid their games of cheating in the near future, 47 percent feel a "sizable minority" of players and coaches cheat (not just a few individuals), and 44 percent think there is "significantly more" cheating now than 20 years ago.

That said, attendance and TV ratings are up in nearly every sport. Apparently, we’re willing to look the other way. And the sports world knows it. As ESPN.com writer Pat Forde recently observed: "There wasn’t much media coverage of the swimmers in Amsterdam who were charged with taking stimulants before their races. That was in the ’60s. The 1860s."

What we allow, we encourage.

Ex-Ballplayer’s Anti-Cheating Campaign
One athlete is trying to do something about it. Being a practicing Mormon, former two-time National league MVP Dale Murphy doesn’t drink, smoke, swear, or cheat. "All we have is our integrity," he told ESPN.com. "It’s high time that athletes go back to wearing that like a badge of honor. And fans begin demanding that."

Murphy practices what he preaches. He recently started an "I Won’t Cheat" campaign aimed at discouraging student-athletes from cheating and using performance-enhancing drugs. A pamphlet he put together for the Utah High School Activities Association was so popular, they ordered 60,000 for the entire state.

Murphy is presently producing a DVD to make his message even more accessible. His goal is to garner national sponsorship from corporations and take his message on the road full-time. "Pretty soon, it’s not going to be true athletic competition anymore," he said. "It’s going to be who has the best chemist. And there’s no disincentive to stop."

Murphy’s initiative is laudable seeing as not many other athletes – former or present – are speaking up or taking action. What he told Yahoo.com could become a motto for not only sports, but society: "I wonder what would happen if we challenged people ethically?"

To read more on the issue of cheating in sports, check out ESPN.com’s superb series of articles called Cheat Wave ’07.

[http://sports.yahoo.com, 4/30/07; http://sports.aol.com, 4/30/07; http://sports.espn.go.com, 8/9/07]

JOCKS BEHAVING BADLY

If Dogfighting Is Illegal, Why Isn’t
the Suicide Race? …

Animal blood sports have captivated mankind for thousands of years. With a few exceptions, notably bullfighting and cockfighting, most such activities are illegal today and only occur underground in society’s dingy shadows. So how come the World Famous Suicide Race continues to slip past the authorities?

In case you aren’t familiar with this four-day elimination event that has been held annually in Omak, Washington, since 1935, here is what happens: Approximately 20 horses and riders dash 120 yards toward a cliff in the dark, plummet more than 200 feet downhill at an "almost vertical" 62-degree slope, plunge into a rocky river, swim more than a football field, and sprint up a grueling uphill climb to the finish. In the early years, racers often drank heavily and beat other jockeys and horses with wooden clubs.

An average of one horse a year has died since 1982 -- 21 in the last 25 races – eliciting a quarter-century-long campaign by animal-rights groups to ban the event to no avail. Why is the race still allowed? According to Washington State law, the race falls under "normal and usual course of rodeo events" despite the fact that the Professional Rodeo Cowboy’s Association says it "does not sponsor, support, nor sanction the Suicide Race."

Race organizers contend that their death rate is equal to or less than that of nearby Emerald Downs racetrack in Seattle. According to the Washington State Horse Racing Commission, eight out of 5,894 horses were euthanized in 2004. The same year, three out of 20 horses perished in the Suicide Race. Between 2001 and 2004, horse deaths at the Suicide Race were more than five times higher than in horse racing (not including unreported deaths during practice trials) according to the Humane Society of the United States.

Stoking the controversy is the fact that most of the riders are from the Colville Confederated Tribes, who say the race is part of their heritage. In fact, the early Indian races were endurance races only. Today’s additional hazards of running in the dark, plunging over a steep cliff, a narrow bottlenecked course with more competitors, and a river crossing were introduced by the event’s business owners to fill seats.

[http://omakstampede.org/history; www.wikipedia.org; www.paws.org; www.indiancountry.com, 9/7/04; www.hsus.org, 7/13/07; http://online.wsj.com, 8/11/07; http://100percentinjuryrate.blogspot.com, 8/12/07]

Former Major Leaguer Swings
a Mean Bat in the Minors …

Advice to Minor Leaguers: This isn’t how to get into the majors.

Jose Offerman, 38, a 15-year veteran and former All-Star infielder with the Mets, Dodgers, and Red Sox, last played in the big leagues in 2005 and wanted back in. Last month he was tearing up the minors, hitting .335 for the Long Island Ducks, when an opposing pitcher hit him with a pitch after Offerman had earlier smacked a home run off of him.

Offerman charged the mound, swinging his bat. Before he was subdued, he had broken one of the pitcher’s fingers and given the catcher a severe concussion. "There’s demons in everybody," Minnesota star Torri Hunter told the Connecticut Post afterward. "You take a bat out there, you can get blackballed from baseball. That’s deep."

Offerman was arrested and charged with two counts of second-degree assault, and the Atlantic League suspended him indefinitely.

[Connecticut Post, 8/15/07]

Wrestlers’ Protest Spells Defeat …

It was a sad day when Eastern Illinois made the fateful decision to discontinue its wrestling program due to poor "academic performance."

Athletic director Rich McDuffie said in a release: "The sport has received NCAA penalties in scholarship reduction, and further penalties could include postseason competition restrictions and/or recruiting restrictions. Therefore, the discontinuation of the program was regrettably a decision that had to be made."

We suspect this campus protest sign by Panther students did not help their cause much.

[http://jg-tc.com, 5/18/07]

JOCKS BEHAVING EXCEPTIONALLY

Hank Aaron’s Classy (and Precise) Congratulation …

Moments after Barry Bonds smacked his record-breaking 756th home run, a recorded video message from Hank Aaron was played on the AT&T Park Jumbotron. After months of "no comment" from Aaron about how he felt about Bonds, his gracious acknowledgment of the achievement was a welcome gesture.

According to Foulballs.net, however, Aaron’s wording may have had a subtle, underlying meaning behind it. Can you read between the lines from this excerpt: "I move over now and offer my best wishes to Barry and his family on this historical achievement."

Did Aaron purposely or mistakenly use historical instead of historic? Historical means documented; historic means extraordinary. Big difference.

Before you decide, read this from the San Francisco Chronicle on how Aaron’s message was written: "The Giants sent a proposed script to Aaron. [Giants executive vice president Larry] Baer said the finished statement was far different, and that every word was crafted with precision. Baer assumes Aaron had many discussions with his own people on the final wording because it took six weeks before Aaron was ready to tape the message."

[www.foulballs.net]

Middle Schoolers Inspire
Community Off the Field …

It’s been said that sports doesn’t build character, it reveals it. Football coach Todd Hagemeier of Westfield Middle School in Westfield, Indiana, discovered how true that is after Hurricane Katrina. He told his team a community was in need and perhaps they could fulfill that need. Picking up trash, the squad raised $1,500 to send to a school in Louisiana.

This year he suggested they do something to give back to their own community for always supporting them.

Not sure if they would be as enthusiastic, he was gratified to see upraised hands – from the entire team. "The problem was, I could only take 14 kids due to a shortage of buses on the day I had in mind," Hagemeier told us.

He said he would take the first 14 players who came back with a signed permission slip. "Within ten minutes of dismissing them, I had all 14 slots filled."

The team ended up volunteering at a softball tournament for Special Olympics. "This event really humbled some of our players and taught them some valuable life lessons," Hagemeier said. "It was one of the proudest days of my coaching career."

Wrong Ball Leads to Right Decision …

Two-time defending conference champion Hayley Milbourn, a senior golfer at Roland Park Country School, a private high school for girls in Baltimore, was cruising to her third straight crown on the final day, leading by five at the turn. Then she came to the 17th hole.

An errant tee shot sent her ball into the deep rough. She punched it out and completed the hole. Checking the condition of her ball as she left the green, she gasped. It wasn’t hers. She had hit another ball out of the rough.

Nobody knew what she’d done, though – not her playing partners, her coach, or tournament officials. If she said nothing, she would take home her third trophy.

"I could have," she told The Baltimore Sun afterward. "But I would have been disgusted with myself. I wouldn’t have been able to sleep. I can’t comprehend the type of person who would do that. How could you look at yourself in the mirror and be proud of yourself?"

She contacted an official and was disqualified from the individual competition. Fortunately, she was credited for her first 16 holes (and given double pars on her last two), enabling her school to still win the team competition.

When a father of three girls from West Des Moines heard about Milbourn’s decision on ESPN, he said, "Now that’s a story I have to tell my girls."

[The Baltimore Sun, 8/7/07; http://sports.espn.go.com, 8/9/07]

Want a Free Sportsmanship Patch?
We sent each of those who contributed an item a free Pursuing Victory With Honor patch for telling us about honorable deeds on and off the field of play.

We'll send you one, too, if you send us your stories at CharacterCountssports@jiethics.org. Put "Jocks Behaving Exceptionally" in the subject box.

You can also report acts of good sportsmanship to the NCAA's Committee on Sportsmanship and Ethical Conduct by clicking here.

COMMENTARY BY
MICHAEL JOSEPHSON

Hall of Fame Character

In July, former San Diego Padre Tony Gwynn and Baltimore Oriole Cal Ripken were inducted into baseball’s Hall of Fame, and the clouds that regularly hang over sports were pierced by pure sunlight.

Forget performance-enhancing drugs, illegal dogfighting, or referees on the take, this was a celebration of a dying breed – honest-to-goodness sports heroes worthy of the title.
Their baseball credentials were stellar, but it isn’t their Hall of Fame statistics that drives this commentary; it’s their Hall of Fame character.

Each had exemplary careers playing for the same team their entire career (21 years for Ripken, 20 years for Gwynn). They worked hard, treated their teammates and fans with respect, and stayed out of trouble. And they are loved. So much so that 75,000 fans made the pilgrimage to honor them – 25,000 more than ever before.

They each spoke reverentially about the game, the importance of hard work, and their families. Gwynn quoted his dad: "If you work hard, good things will happen."

Ripken also talked about his father, but his speech was mostly about making a difference in the world and setting an example for others. "Sports can play a big role in teaching values and principles," he said. "It can be a huge developmental tool for life. Just think -- teamwork, leadership, work ethic, and trust are all part of the game and are also factors in how we make the most of our lives."

About his consecutive-games-played streak, he said, "I know some of you look back at my consecutive-game streak as an accomplishment. While I appreciate it, I just look at it as showing up to do your work every day."

It was a class act all the way.

This is Michael Josephson reminding you that character counts.

For an archive of Mr. Josephson's commentaries with audio files, go to: www.CharacterCounts.org/knxtoc.htm.

To receive free weekly e-mail, including all five of Mr. Josephson's commentaries from that week, please sign up at: www.CharacterCounts.org/newsletters.htm.

CHARACTER COUNTS! Sports, a project of the nonprofit Josephson Institute, leads the Pursuing Victory With Honor sports campaign, which is endorsed by the country's leading amateur athletic organizations.

The campaign's purpose is to help administrators, athletes, coaches, legislators, officials, and parents improve personal and organizational decision making and behavior in sports.

Archives of Past Issues

ANNOUNCEMENTS

CHARACTER COUNTS! Week
Is Just Around the Corner.
Are You Ready to Party?

CC! Week 2007 is almost here, and we've made ordering materials for your celebration easy with a special shopping page of support materials that can help you add fun and flair to your festivities.

Display posters and banners to raise awareness. Distribute wrist bands, ribbons, and stickers as rewards.

Find out about CC! Week here.
To purchase online, click here.

Prices will go up October 1,
so order now and save!

New Achievement Videos Show CHARACTER COUNTS! in Action

Thanks to a gift from a generous donor, Josephson Institute has documented the benefits of schools using our CC! framework.

Click on the above videos to witness how character education has completely changed the environment in three Los Angeles schools -- an elementary school, a middle school, and a high school.

Recruit for Character

The importance of ethics and sportsmanship are paramount during the recruiting process to determine if student-athletes have or will develop the character to succeed. How can coaches and athletic directors ensure that their prospects are of high integrity?

CHARACTER COUNTS! sports suggests you:

1. Instruct recruiters to explicitly detail your institution’s expectations to prospective recruits regarding character and conduct on and off the field.

2. Research all recruits thoroughly for prior misconduct that might indicate a character problem. If you cannot conclude definitively that the athlete possesses no character problems that could harm your institution’s reputation, do not offer a scholarship.

3. If you decide to accept recruits with past character issues, assure they are continually counseled, supported, and monitored to help them strengthen their character.

[http://www.CharacterCounts.org/
sports/strategies.htm]

Who Is the Greatest All-Time
Home Run Hitter?

• Sadaharu Oh
868 lifetime (one every 10.7 at bats).
Oh led the Japanese league in home runs 15 times (13 consecutive seasons) and led the Yomiuri Giants to 11 crowns.

• Josh Gibson
~800 lifetime (~one every 15.9 at bats).
His baseball Hall of Fame plaque records "almost 800" homers in the Negro leagues, including 89 one year and 69 in another.

• Barry Bonds
761 lifetime (one every 12.9 at bats).
Bonds also holds the single-season mark (73) and the most consecutive seasons with 30 or more home runs (13).

• Henry Aaron
755 lifetime (one every 16.3 at bats).
He is the only player to hit 30 or more in a season at least 15 times.

• Babe Ruth
714 lifetime (one every 11.8 at bats).
The first player to hit 30, 40, 50, and 60 home runs in a season. He averaged 44 per year from 1920 through 1934 and 50+ from 1926 through 1931 when homers were a rarity.

• Sammy Sosa
604 lifetime (one every 14.5 at bats).
The only player in history to hit 60+ home runs three times. He also holds the record for the most home runs in one month (20).

• Mark McGwire
583 lifetime (one every 10.6 at bats).
He hit the most home runs ever as a rookie (49) and was the first to hit 30+ homers in his first four seasons. He hit 50 or more home runs four seasons in a row.

• Alex Rodriguez
509 lifetime (one every 14.3 at bats).
He is the youngest player to hit 300, 400, and 500 home runs. Only 32, Rodriguez could conceivably play ten more years.

Click here to vote

Results of Last Month's Poll

Should institutions be allowed to punish athletes accused of crimes before their day in court? Yes. An institution should be able to discipline individuals for misconduct before legal proceedings begin if the reputation and integrity of the sport is in jeopardy. No. Doing so would set a bad precedent. Accusations, rumors, and/or likeability should not be grounds for punishment. I'm not sure.

PRINCIPLE OF THE MONTH

Principle Sixteen: Be a Teacher/Coach

At Josephson Institute’s recent Pursuing Victory With Honor sportsmanship seminar in Los Angeles, a host of innovative coaching and teaching ideas were exchanged. Here are random notes from the two-day gathering:

Coaching
"Above all, you’re a teacher. Madeline Cheek Hunter, one of America’s greatest educators, learned much of her methods from John Wooden, a coach."

"Sports is the only place where life skill sets – perseverance, sacrifice, integrity – are formally taught. For that reason, sports is as important as academics."

"A coach can be the most important person in a kid’s life because he or she controls playing time, knowledge, and modeling. Because kids want to please them, coaches can reach children where no one else can, making them at times more effective than teachers, counselors, even parents."

"Explain to kids the difference between themselves and the pro game and why they should not model the win-at-all-costs behavior of professional athletes. Pro sports are different. They’re the entertainment business. Pros play for money. High school kids should be encouraged to play for the love of the game."

"Hire refs for a practice scrimmage and instruct them to purposely make wrong calls to see how your players react. Film it and use the experience as a teachable moment."

Officiating
"Officials are educators, too. They can talk to players, coaches, parents, and spectators about their behavior."

"Don’t always be the bad cop. You can play the good cop, too."

Parenting
"The biggest curse is having a child with big feet or hands. Your natural reaction is: ‘My kid’s going to be a basketball star!’ All kinds of visions can jump into your head after that."

Principle Sixteen of the Arizona Sports Summit Accord states that "The profession of coaching is a profession of teaching. In addition to teaching the mental and physical dimensions of their sport, coaches -- through words and example -- must strive to build the character of their athletes."

Nearly 50 influential leaders in sports issued the Arizona Sports Summit Accord in 1999 to encourage greater emphasis on the ethical and character-building aspects of athletic competition.

There are youth/interscholastic and collegiate/Olympic versions. Read the full texts here.

"Dogfighting is a sport; it’s just behind closed doors. We don’t say anything about people who shoot deer or other animals."
-- New York Knick guard Stephon Marbury defending Michael Vick

"[It’s] going to use that $12 million to organize fights between NFL players."
-- David Letterman on the late Leona Helmsley leaving $12 million in her will to her dog

"We’re encouraging people to help us flush these cowards out and let them fight their own battles for a change – with the criminal justice system."
-- PETA announcement offering a reward up to $5,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of dogfighters

"I’ll be the first to admit I would tank a lot of games. It depends on where you are."
-- Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban when asked if he would purposely lose games in certain circumstances to get a better draft pick

"One game a week? Is the N in NFL for Nancy?", "The only thing our refs shave is the ice," and "Maybe baseball should stop using the word sacrifice."
-- New billboard ad campaign for NHL’s Dallas Stars, which takes shots at other sports

"He beat me by seven shots. Does that mean he’s that much better? It just happens that he scored better. Does that mean he played better than me or he’s better than me? I don’t agree with that."
-- Golfer Woody Austin on Tiger Woods’s victory at the PGA Championship

"This record is not tainted at all, at all. Period. You guys can say whatever you want."
-- Barry Bonds to reporters after hitting his 756th home run to break Henry Aaron’s career record

"Yeah, but that’s like Josh Gibson’s 800. Did we forget about him, or didn’t he exist? Congratulations, Sadaharu Oh."
-- Barry Bonds when reminded that Japanese legend Sadaharu Oh hit 868 career home runs

"It was 1 o’clock in the morning. Heck, I’m not going to sit up and watch a baseball game. It wasn’t a matter of being disrespectful. It’s a matter of, hey, the body needed to go to sleep."
-- Hank Aaron on why he was asleep when Barry Bonds broke his career home-run record

"Nothing more secretive than this has come out of Atlanta since the Coca-Cola formula."
-- Larry Baer, San Francisco Giants chief operating officer, on the covert efforts to transport and keep under wraps Henry Aaron’s taped congratulatory message to Barry Bonds

"It would be an unbelievably stupid thing for him to do, given the fact that the guy’s [ranked] four or five in the world. Talk about risking everything. If a guy like that would make that type of gamble, that would be insane."
-- Tennis commentator John McEnroe on the ATP probe of Nikolay Davydenko’s injury withdrawal and loss to an underdog opponent after suspicious betting patterns and amounts had been placed on his opponent

"This guy may never win a Super Bowl, but he has a great shot at the Breeder’s Cup."
-- Jay Leno on Denver Broncos running back Travis Henry having to pay child support to nine women for nine children

~ Classic From the Past ~

"Hawaii doesn’t win many games in the United States."
-- Lee Corso, ESPN football analyst

Queen Latifah -- High school basketball player and karate student
Robin Roberts -- Third all-time leading basketball scorer at Southeastern Louisiana
Vera Wang -- 1968 U.S. Figure Skating Championships competitor
Donna Shalala -- Collegiate tennis player
Condoleezza Rice -- Competitive figure skater as a child
Paula Zahn -- First woman to play in the Houston Pro-Am Golf Tournament
Katie Couric -- High school gymnast, runner, and cheerleader
Sally Ride -- Nationally ranked high school tennis player
Geena Davis -- Olympic archery team finalist

[The New York Times Sunday sports magazine Play, 9/07]

Please let us know what you are doing -- or what you see others doing -- so we can share your stories to strengthen character-building efforts everywhere. Go to: CharacterCountsSports@jiethics.org

Josephson Institute
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Los Angeles, CA 90045
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The nonprofit Josephson Institute is involved in many exciting projects. Here are some of our most recent activities.

Olympic Character
Institute president Michael Josephson will kick off the U.S. Olympic Committee’s much-anticipated Olympic Ambassador Program program in Washington, D.C. on September 7-8 with a 90-minute address followed by a panel discussion he will conduct on “What It Means to Be an Olympian.” Subsequent sessions will be held in Los Angeles (November), San Francisco (January), and Chicago (May). If necessary, a fifth gathering will take place in Colorado in June. The program’s goal is to improve America’s image abroad by training all U.S. Olympic athletes headed to Beijing next summer on the importance of Olympic ideals, sportsmanship, and exemplary behavior on and off the field.

Destination R&R
The Blewitt Foundation, a nonprofit organization that supports military families, recently launched Destination R&R. The pilot program will give members and veterans of the U.S. military and their families who have experienced loss or sustained injuries an escape from the grim and difficult realities of life. Josephson Institute is supporting the effort by implementing its CHARACTER COUNTS! framework into the program.

Youth Camp Values
The Institute is spearheading a program to conduct research on how values and ethical principles can be more effectively integrated into youth camps, specifically those administered by Rotary International. Our findings will be presented to the organization’s national conference in October.

Disney and Sports
The head of Walt Disney’s Corporate Outreach Program is working with to see if there is interest in adapting Josephson Institute’s Gold Medal Standards for Youth Sports into a booklet to distribute to coaches. In addition, is in discussions with us on the work we’re doing on character education.

* * *

Josephson Institute is working to create a world where people act more ethically. Being a nonprofit, we need the help of readers like you to embark on projects such as these and to provide services like this newsletter free of charge. Please consider making a gift today of whatever you can afford.

To donate securely online, click here. To read about the Institute's many other activities, visit:
www.CharacterCounts.org and www.JosephsonInstitute.org