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IN THIS ISSUE: FRONT ROW Youth- and School-Based Sports: Announcements
YOUTH- AND SCHOOL-BASED SPORTS Sometimes Faith Can Do Miracles “Coach, why are we doing this?” Grapevine Faith’s (TX) high school football coach replied, “Imagine if you didn’t have a home life. Imagine if everybody had pretty much given up on you. Imagine what it would mean for hundreds of people to suddenly believe in you.” In Rick Reilly’s moving ESPN.com story of how one simple gesture by a teacher-coach can change lives forever, he described what took place on a remote field last November in the little town of Grapevine, Texas. Kris Hogan, coach of the 7-2 Grapevine Faith, wanted to do something special for his visiting opponent, the 0-8 Gainesville State Tornadoes, whose players weren’t having a good year in more ways than one. He contacted Faithful fans and exhorted them to split up for the game – he wanted half of them to root for the visitors this one night only. When Gainesville took the field, a 40-yard spirit line of Faith fans were lined up for them to run between, and a GO TORNADOES! banner was at the end for them to burst through. Two hundred Faithful fans awaited them in the visitor’s bleachers and cheered for them the entire game. “I thought maybe they were confused,” said a Gainesville lineman afterward. “They started yelling ‘DEE-fense!’ when their team had the ball. I said, ‘What?’”
Gainesville State players douse their coach
Mark Williams after the game. After the game, which Gainesville lost once again, players from both teams gathered at midfield to pray. Leading it was a Gainesville player named Isiah. “Lord, I don’t know how this happened so I don’t know how to say thank you,” he said. “But I never would have known there were so many people in the world who cared about us.” As the visitors walked off the field, Faith’s players watched silently as 12 armed officers escorted the boys into their bus. As they stepped aboard, Faith supporters handed each of them a bag for the ride home. In each one were a hamburger, fries, candy, a soda, a Bible, and a personal letter from a Faith player. The Gainesville coach went up to coach Hogan and said, “You’ll never know what your people did for these kids tonight. You’ll never, ever know.” Every Tornadoes football game is on the road because Gainesville is a maximum-security correctional facility. We’ll let Reilly recount the rest of the story:
Click here to read the entire story. [Thanks, Gary Gerhard, for the tip!]
One day after the score of a small private school girls’ basketball game was posted on dallasnews.com last month, 665,000 people had viewed the item worldwide, and e-mails were pouring in from as far away as China and Thailand. The reason for the attention was that the Covenant School of Dallas, a private Christian school, had achieved one of the rarest and most odious distinctions in sports: a century shutout – 100-0 – over Dallas Academy.
If that weren't enough, Academy's students all have a variety of learning problems. It has only 20 girls in the entire school. Some on its eight-girl roster have never played the game before. And the team hasn't won a game in four years. Micah Grimes, Covenant’s coach, said the shutout “just happened,” though Covenant players continued to hoist shot 3-pointers in the fourth quarter and fans and an assistant coach cheered wildly as the team approached the magic mark. There is no mercy rule in girls’ basketball to prevent lopsided scores, but according to Edd Burleson, director of the Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools (TAPP) that oversees private school athletics in Texas, the Golden Rule should have been applied. “Our motto is Competition With Honor,” Burleson told The Dallas Morning News. “I can’t see how the one school can live up to that.” To Covenant's credit, the school issued a statement, widely lauded, confessing that the game did not reflect “a Christ-like and honorable approach to athletics. We humbly apologize for our actions and seek the forgiveness of Dallas Academy.” The school then formally offered to forfeit the game. The incident soon evolved into an almost Disneyesque parable: the gutty, lovable losers became the true heroes and winners while the relentless, dominant victors limped away as brutish failures. “My girls never quit,” Academy athletic director Jeremy Civello told the paper. “They played as hard as they could to the very end. They played with all their hearts at 70-nothing, 80-nothing, and 100-nothing. I told them someday they will be on top in a similar situation and should remember how they felt. Hopefully, my girls learned a lesson in sportsmanship that will last a lifetime.” Grimes shot off an e-mail to the press following Covenant’s apology: “I do not agree with the apology or the notion that Covenant should feel embarrassed or ashamed. We played the game as it was meant to be played. If I lose my job over these statements, I will walk away with my integrity.” The next day he was fired. Whether he left with his integrity is unconfirmed. Meanwhile, the Academy girls were whisked from one network morning talk show to another, and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban invited them to a home game. Final Shot “Why, as Americans, do we fall into this trap of affording celebrity to those who have done nothing other than embarrass themselves?” Whitt cited the 2003 Mavericks playoff game in which Portland Blazers coach Maurice Cheeks “heroically” helped a 13-year-old girl get through the National Anthem after she forgot the words. “In the same series, a 10-year-old boy sang the Anthem flawlessly. Guess which kid became a national celebrity. Does William Hung ring a bell?” Whitt claims we’re raising the softest generation of children in history. Every kid in youth leagues gets a participation plaque. When kids lose a videogame, they consult their cheat codes or start a new game. Presto. Failure avoided. “Valuable lessons can be learned from losing, but not if they’re sugar-coated. Lose by 40, get better. Lose by 100, be a star!” [hsgametime.com, 1/22/09; foxnews.com, 1/23/09; dallasnews.com, 1/25/09, 1/26/09; blogs.dallasobserver.com, 1/26/09]
Rarely do you hear explanations from both sides of a blowout as thoughtful and comprehensive as after this recent boy’s high school basketball game in Illinois’s North Suburban Conference Prairie Division (reported by Patricia Babcock McGraw of the Daily Herald). North Chicago beat Round Lake 129-48, shattering the all-time scoring record. Point: After the game, Round Lake’s coach Howard Kravets had a few things to say about his 81-point shellacking. “In my 15 years of coaching, it’s the worst display of sportsmanship I’ve ever seen. I can’t see how what happened could ever be a good thing. I don’t think that’s what high school sports is all about.” Kravets claimed that North Chicago: Counterpoint: North Chicago’s coach Gerald Coleman replied, “We weren’t trying to hurt anyone’s feelings, and I could honestly care less about any scoring record. If I were a bad sport, we would have scored over 200. It’s not my fault that Round Lake isn’t competitive. Our goal is to win state this year, and I want my guys playing hard in every game so they can prepare.” Coleman defended his actions: Which coach was right? Cast your vote in this issue’s “You Make the Call” poll question. [basketball.dailyherald.com, 12/12/08]
Six New Year’s Resolutions Here are a half dozen New Year’s resolutions for college administrators, courtesy of Michael Cross, executive associate director of athletics at Princeton University: 1. Emphasize community service. Athletes, coaches, and administrators are natural leaders and have countless opportunities to make a difference. Make a commitment to service. 2. Stress academics. The pressure to win is intense, but a recent survey revealed that 73 percent of prospects say they never met a professor or visited a class during their official trip. Turn that around. 3. Widen your tent. Football and basketball may bring in the bucks, but hundreds of great stories and people exist beyond the bright lights of the revenue sports. Support them. 4. Boost department morale. For every star athlete or coach, countless support people go unnoticed – equipment staff, grounds crew, strength staff, ticket office, etc. Small things can go a long way in making everyone feel a part of the team. Show appreciation. 5. Think green. Shrink your media guide, produce smaller programs, recycle at your venues, and schedule more local teams to reduce your travel budget. Reduce your carbon footprint. 6. Spotlight sportsmanship. Urge your athletes, coaches, and fans to respect your guests, provide a positive game environment, and contribute to a more civil society. Change the tone. [ultimatesportsinsider.com, 12/28/08]
Hall of Fame basketball coaches Pat Summitt, Lou Carnesecca, and Dean Smith have won their share of accolades over the years, but what they were recently presented with may mean more than all the others. They were the inaugural recipients of the Joe Lapchick Character Award in a ceremony at Madison Square Garden last November.
The award was established by a committee started by longtime coach Gus Alfieri, who was on Lapchick’s 1959 NIT championship team, to recognize basketball coaches who’ve shown the character of Hall of Famer Lapchick, a member of the original Boston Celtics, coach of St. John’s and the New York Knicks, and one of the leaders who integrated the NBA. The first-ever recipients were well chosen: • Pat Summitt, the winningest coach in women’s basketball history at Tennessee and winner of eight national championships, is known for requiring all of her players to sit in the first three rows of class. Every one of her players during her 34 years at the university have graduated. • Lou Carnesecca, who coached at St. John’s for 24 years, is considered one of the sport’s ambassadors for his efforts to introduce the game abroad. He was Lapchick’s assistant for nine years and remembers the business card Lapchick gave him to remind him to never take himself too seriously: "Peacock today, feather-duster tomorrow." • Dean Smith, the second winningest coach in men’s basketball history at North Carolina, has an arena named after him and was the first recipient of the Mentor Award for Lifetime Achievement for “teaching beyond the classroom.” One of his former players, Mitch Kupchak, now general manager of the Los Angeles Lakers, recalled that many coaches promised him a starting role, but Smith promised him a degree. That's why he chose North Carolina. [cstv.com, 10/21/08; sports.espn.go.com, 11/20/08; nytimes.com, 11/21/08]
From Paris to Pacman Judging by what the media chose to write about last year, the two most important news happenings were Iraq and Adam “Pacman” Jones, the pro football player who's been arrested six times and been involved in 13 police episodes since 2005. “What I find most disappointing is the degree of importance we continue to place on characters like Pacman,” ESPN’s LZ Granderson wrote. “He’s as significant an NFL player as Paris Hilton is an actress. “Why do his actions get more face time and public response than, say, Warrick Dunn? [His] foundation helped its 83rd family buy a first home. “What about Tony Romo, who changed the tire of an elderly couple stuck on the side of the road after a game? We can’t make athletes contribute to society, but we can decide which athletes to focus on.” This has been a perennial gripe against the media, that it favors negative stories over positive ones. (“If it bleeds, it leads” is the old maxim.) And yet what does the fickle public voraciously eat up like chocolate raisins? Sex, violence, scandals, and celebrity gossip. Only two bloggers responded to Granderson’s article. Both rejected his call for more feel-good stories, but for different reasons. And both make good arguments: • “Most athletes only do good work because their agent explains the PR and tax benefits, and a lot of the work they do is mandated by the leagues. You can see it in some of the faces. They’d rather be anywhere else.” Editor’s note: As this newsletter is specifically about sportsmanship, both good and bad, we regularly report on knuckleheads like Jones and others. Our purpose, however, is not to sensationalize them or to boost readership. It's to contrast such behavior to more acceptable conduct. [sports.espn.go.com, 1/13/09]
Charles No Longer Fans’ Fave It probably didn’t surprise many when the wheels finally came off of the Charles Barkley bandwagon after it veered off the road and pitched into the dreaded John Daly dead end.
It’s yet another sad case of a lovable jock icon with way too many appetites and personal issues and too little judgment and self-control. Barkley’s latest comedown was his drunk-driving arrest on New Year’s Eve. His other NSFR (Not Safe for Resume) accomplishments: • Broke man’s nose in Milwaukee bar fight (1991) After his latest incident, Barkley was suspended by TNT, where he worked as commentator, and dropped by T-Mobile, where he was one of its popular “Fave 5” spokespersons. Look for his upcoming Golf Channel reality show (in which swing coach Hank Haney would attempt to fix Barkley's infamous swing) to be shelved as well. Barkley has long maintained that he makes enough money to afford his gambling losses (which he estimates to total about $10 million), but now that his latest action threatens to cost him much, if not all, of his livelihood, there may be only one option left, as Rick Chandler of Deadspin.com forecast: “We’re a few months from the debut of the Charles Barkley Grill.” [adage.com, 1/12/09; deadspin.com, 1/13/09]
Ice hockey fans from Needham High School in Massachusetts were so unruly last year that the Ice Hockey Committee of the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association told the school to improve its “fan culture” for the 2008-2009 winter season or face sanctions. The school added more crowd monitors at games, sent a letter to parents, and amended the student handbook. When MIAA representatives attended a recent game against Wellesley to observe Needham’s behavior, you’d think the students would be on their best behavior. Whoa, dude, this is Needham! The officials were greeted by “Put your clipboards away!” and the visiting team was welcomed with “Wellesley, you suck!” All students have been banned from Needham’s next home game. [boston.com, 1/7/09]
Ref E-mails Coach After Game Shortly after a boy’s high school basketball game between Illinois Bluffs and Roanoke-Benson in Glasford, Illinois, one of the referees sent this e-mail to Illinois Bluffs’ athletic director:
We don’t know who deserves the most praise here – teacher-coach Tyler Hesh for his conduct and professionalism or referee Jeff Albee for caring enough to reward positive coaching and taking the time to write such a letter. FYI: Illinois Bluffs is a CHARACTER COUNTS! school, and coach Hesh is a member of the CC! Committee. [Thanks, counselor Pat Fuller, for the tip!] A reader sent us an item about a selfless sportsmanship decision a Tennessee girls’ high school volleyball coach made in 2003 that ended the season for her top-seeded team, which had reached the Class AAA state tournament 14 straight years, winning it the previous five and finishing runner-up the four years before that.
Barbara Campbell of Brentwood High School, whose career record is an astounding 1204-217 and state record is 71-16, was watching her team rout its opponent in the quarterfinal match when she asked her JV coach if she could let some of those players play since their season was over. One of them, unbeknownst to her, had transferred from a private school after the school year had started, which was against league rules. No one noticed the error, but Campbell did afterward. She could have said nothing, “but we weren’t going to do that,” she told the Nashville City Paper at the time. She reported the mistake, and her Lady Bruins had to forfeit out of the tournament. “The girls are devastated,” she confessed later. “I feel so badly for them, especially the three seniors, because they exceeded all expectations.” As for Campbell herself: “I’ve been crying since 10:30 Thursday morning. But I hold no grudges. I wish both Franklin and Centennial [the district finalists] both luck in the tournament.” The reader concluded by writing: “What a message it sent to the ladies on the team and the community about integrity.” I wondered why the reader sent such an old item when I noticed another story at the top. It was a recent story from The Tennessean: 2008 COACH OF THE YEAR She won, the paper said, for leading Brentwood “back to the Class AAA final.” We suspect it was for more than that. [Thanks, Anthony Carter, for the tip!] |
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. |
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