IN THIS ISSUE:
FRONT ROW
Special Report: Does Sports Competition Undermine Moral Character?
Jocks Behaving Badly: Sportsmanship Doesn’t Have Rulebooks
Jocks Behaving Exceptionally: A Medal Ceremony That Won’t Soon Be Forgotten
SIDELINES
Announcements
Trivia Test: Who Was This Sports Icon?
Sportsmanship User’s Guide: The Recreational Model of Sports
You Make the Call: Should the Seniors Go to the Finals or the Prom?
Principle of the Month: A Letter to Parents of Swimmers
Say What?
Trivia Test Answer
Michael Josephson Commentary: King James or Spoiled Prince?
See what it is to play unfair!
Where cheating is, there’s mischief there.
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– William Blake, British poet (1757-1827)
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FRONT ROW
SPECIAL REPORT
Does Sports Competition
Undermine Moral Character?
Our Pursuing Victory With Honor sportsmanship campaign continually seeks to stimulate new thinking about issues related to character education in sports.
The issue that has long concerned us is: With so much emphasis on winning, does sports competition undermine moral character? We decided to ask two longtime members of our PVWH family to address that topic.
 John Forenti
It can and does, but it’s not inevitable.
The opportunity to build good character is most significant in youth sports (middle school and below) because the attitudes and behaviors associated with competitive athletics are still being formed.
Youth Level
If we hire coaches and league officials at the outset who are willing to discard the notion that winning is the most important thing, it’s possible to build and develop character traits in young athletes that will help them make their way through life and become positive and productive members of society.
On the other hand, if we emphasize that winning is the most important thing, building and developing character traits will become a secondary consideration. By definition, if winning is the most important thing, then doing anything to win is acceptable.
High School Level
If developing character has been neglected at the youth level, the job will be much more difficult in high school. At this level, athletic competition is much broader and an integral part of the educational landscape, and the emphasis on success in terms of winning is far more prevalent.
In this environment, a win-at-all-costs mentality is more often embraced by not just coaches and athletic directors but parents and community leaders, often reflected by ineligible players, recruiting violations, and forfeited games and championships.
Collegiate Level
At the collegiate level, there often seems little connection between education and athletic competition. Here the consequences of not developing character at the youth and/or interscholastic levels become critical. College isn’t a win-at-all-costs mentality; it’s a win-at-all-costs culture. Symptoms include statements like “If you’re not cheating, you’re not trying hard enough” or “It’s only cheating if you get caught.”
At many high-profile institutions, graduation rates for athletes are so low that a picture of any athlete in a cap and gown is a collector’s item. The real tragedy is that only a microscopic percentage of athletes ever make it to the professional level, let alone make a career of it. Most walk away from their collegiate athletic experience with little to prepare them for the rest of their life.
Professional Level
It’s in the professional ranks where the symptoms of not developing character at an early age become glaring. That’s because for almost all of their lives, such athletes have been excused for unacceptable behavior because of their prodigious talent instead of being held accountable for their conduct or having demands made of their character. Pros often act as if their athletic prowess gives them carte blanche to do anything they please.
This shouldn’t surprise us. They’re simply the product of the system we created. We’re the ones who fell asleep on the job.
Now the good news.
Nobel Peace Prize laureate General George Marshall once said, “I want an officer for a secret and dangerous mission. I want a West Point football player.”
He wasn’t talking about the ability to score touchdowns. He meant the qualities that competitive sports require. The kind that prepared:
• Football players John F. Kennedy (Harvard), Gerald Ford (Michigan), and Dwight D. Eisenhower (West Point) and baseball player George H.W. Bush (Yale) to become President of the United States
• Tennis player Sally Ride (Stanford) to become the first American woman in space
• Basketball player Bill Bradley (Princeton) to become a Rhodes Scholar and Senator
• Basketball player Kevin Johnson (California) to become mayor of Sacramento
• Football player Byron “Whizzer” White (Colorado) to serve on the Supreme Court
• Rugby player Mark Bingham (California) to become a hero during Flight 93 on 9/11
Jesse Owens was in trouble at the 1936 Summer Olympic Games in Berlin. He'd fouled on his first two qualifying attempts in the long jump. Down to his last attempt, he became despondent.
Luz Long, Germany’s long jumper, calmed him down by advising him to jump well back of the board. He assured him he was good enough to do so and still qualify easily.
Owens did as he suggested and indeed qualified for the finals. Later that afternoon, he won the gold medal and Long finished second. They left the stadium arm in arm. Tragically, Long was later killed in the war. But Owens never forgot him.
“You can melt down all the medals and cups I have and they wouldn’t be plating on the 24-karat friendship I felt for Luz Long at that moment,” Owens remarked years later.
This would be a great story if it ended there. But it didn’t. Twenty-four years later, Luz Long’s son Karl got married. He sent for Jesse Owens to be his best man.
Although winning is important, the potential of sport is more than that.
John Forenti, a former Tulare County Teacher of the Year, is one of Josephson Institute’s most distinguished speakers and faculty members. Certified to lead our seminars in three disciplines – character development, sportsmanship, and workplace ethics – he has given training sessions to more than 3,000 educators, parents, and community members since 1996.
 John Naber
Of course not. It simply reveals it.
My grandfather attended Wabash College almost 90 years ago, and as I understand it, he was the school’s first 16-letter man. As Grandpa told the tale, in each of his four years in school he earned four varsity letters (football, basketball, baseball, and track) while still participating in the glee club, student government, and all of his classes.
The challenge, he said, was to do the work necessary to excel in sports and get all he could out of the college experience while devoting himself to his studies so he could graduate on time with his classmates. I’m pleased to report that he graduated on to a very successful career in banking.
Grandpa was a role model for me in my athletic, academic, and personal career. His stories of sportsmanship and camaraderie and the benefits that sport provided him in his professional career were a source of inspiration. I wanted to excel in sports but not at the expense of my learning or growing as an adult.
The Amateur Code
I may have been fortunate. In the 1970s it was easy to resist the temptations of fame or fortune because throughout my swimming career, the rules about financial remuneration were unambiguous. The amateur athletic code prevented any swimmer from making a single dollar from their sport. Prize money, appearance fees, or product sponsorships were strictly prohibited.
In fact, the only American President of the International Olympic Committee believed that an individual who dug ditches for a living should be prevented from competing in the Olympic Games because he was already being “paid to exercise his muscles.”
The Olympic Ideal
While that philosophy may have been extreme, the thinking behind it may have had some value. The Olympian ideal of a sportsman is of one who struggles to succeed for the honor of sport and the glory of his team, not the financial lucre of success or the adoration of fans.
The pitfall of sport is the concept of “entitlement” and the feeling that good athletic performance entitles one to a less-that-excellent character.
As the financial rewards for athletic success increase, the temptation to pursue those rewards does as well. The incidence of poor behavior away from the athletic arena is a reflection of what society seems to value – success over character.
Success and Character
Around the middle of the 20th century, U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren was quoted as saying, “I always turn to the sports pages first, which record people’s accomplishments. The front page has nothing but man’s failures.”
Perhaps that was true in his day, but lately sports pages report more than their share of man’s character shortcomings. We’ve seen stories of professional athletes who’ve been arrested for gambling, driving drunk and/or recklessly, carrying concealed firearms, raising animals to kill each other, physically or sexually assaulting others, and even committing murder.
In the athletic arena we’ve read stories of athletes strangling a coach, using performance-enhancing substances, hiring thugs to disable an opponent, and officials shaving points for gamblers.
In today’s sports-crazy environment, would you feel your daughter is safer going to the prom on the arm of the football team captain or the chairman of the chess club? Is a varsity letter on someone’s jacket a tribute or a warning?
Does sport undermine moral character? Of course not. Participation in sport has the ability to create wonderful personal character in such areas as hard work, discipline, respecting authority, obeying rules, setting goals, teamwork, and many other fine traits.
But moral character isn’t necessarily taught in sport. Concepts like respecting one’s opponent, knowing the difference between gamesmanship and sportsmanship, caring about spectators, showing up on time, being courteous to volunteers and the media, and cleaning up after oneself are lessons that should also be learned but are much harder to measure.
While some coaches make an effort to teach moral character, most aren’t rewarded or promoted unless they also demonstrate they can win. The win/loss statistic is the easiest one to measure, and sadly for most, the only one that matters.
Sports may not build character, but it certainly reveals it.
Sports Exposes Who We Are
In no field of endeavor are so many eyes and cameras focused on the participants than the world of sport. At the recent 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, the members of the broadcast and print media outnumbered the athletes 2 to 1. More hours of Olympic competition were aired online and on-air than in all previous Olympic Games combined. Any example of good or bad behavior was not only witnessed but replayed countless times.
At Beijing’s Water Cube swimming facility, U.S. swimmer Dara Torres asked a meet official to postpone the start of the 50-meter freestyle semifinal so a Swedish opponent could have time to replace a faulty swimsuit. By doing so, Torres placed herself at a disadvantage (changing her pre-race preparations, etc.) to give her competitor a second chance.
In another Olympic arena, a disgruntled Cuban taekwondo competitor was so affronted by an official’s call that he kicked the official in the face.
Television cameras captured both events. Guess which behavior was easier to replay on television and got the most attention?
The word “competition” comes from the Latin root words com (together) and petition (to seek). Sport should be where we seek the answer to an athletic question together. Competition should be a joint journey of discovery.
The goal of sport as articulated in the Olympic Motto “Citius, Altius, Fortius” (Swifter, Higher, Stronger) is to determine which individual is able to run faster, jump higher, and lift the greater weight. The original intent of the ancient Olympic Games was to honor the gods with the best man can do, not to elevate man to the level of a god.
My favorite swimming medal is one I never earned. In 1972 I was a junior in high school. While clowning around on the diving board, I accidentally broke my collarbone. This prevented me from swimming that season, even though I’d set the district record in the backstroke the prior year.
My main competition was Jeff Stites, a former mentor and crosstown rival. I sat in the bleachers next to his girlfriend and watched him win the backstroke virtually unopposed. After the awards presentation, Jeff joined us in the stands, his girlfriend between us. Reaching across her, he handed me his gold medallion.
“John, if you’d been healthy, I’m pretty sure you would’ve won," he said. "I want you to have this.”
When I tried to demur, his girlfriend, with tears in her eyes, said, “You have to take it. It’s all he’s been talking about for three days.” I accepted the gift, unable to speak.
Some memories are worth more than gold. The greatest honors are humbling as well.
John Naber, a four-time Olympic gold medal-winning swimmer, Sullivan Award winner, and Pierre de Coubertin Olympic sportsmanship medal recipient, is Chair of the Board of Trustees for CHARACTER COUNTS! Sports and heads Naber & Associates, Inc., a team of corporate coaches and motivators.
No written word,
No spoken plea,
Can teach our youth
What they should be,
Nor all the books
On the shelves,
It’s what the teachers are themselves.
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JOCKS BEHAVING BADLY
Sportsmanship Doesn’t Have Rulebooks
Isaac Newton’s Third Law of Motion states that “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.”
Let’s test it out. Remember that memorable example of sportsmanship two years ago in women’s softball when a player hit the winning home run but injured her knee touching first and couldn’t run it out?
Because the rules state your teammates can’t touch or help you on the basepath, the outcome of the game hovered in the balance as the player lay on the ground writhing in pain. The matter was settled when members of the opposing team picked her up (perfectly legal) and carried her around the bases.
If Newton was correct, that incident should generate an equal and opposite reaction.
Fast-forward to last May. In Minnesota’s College Athletic Conference women’s softball state tournament, Central Lakes College was playing Rochester Community and Technical College. The game was scoreless in the bottom of the seventh (last) inning. Central Lakes was up. If they scored, they would not only win but their pitcher, who’d pitched seven no-hit innings, would record her first no-no.
First baseman Ashly Erickson didn’t let her down. She smacked a pitch out of the park for a walk-off home run. Pandemonium. Exuberant teammates high-fived her as she rounded third.
Jean Musgjerd, Rochester’s coach since 1994, calmly went out and reminded the umpire of the rule prohibiting teammates from touching a batter or baserunner running the bases.
Having no choice, the ump nodded and said, “Batter’s out.”
Rochester won 4-0 in extra innings. Afterward, Musgjerd told the Star Tribune, “You don’t want to win in that way, but you have to play by the rules.”
Others had a different opinion.
Of the walk-off-walk-back-on homer, ESPN.com’s Rick Reilly called it the first game ever lost by congratulations.
“I hate this kind of crap,” he wrote. “There’s nothing cheaper than using some tiny, unconnected technicality to rob somebody. My e-mail box fills up with these kinds of stories all the time: ‘I lost the pine box derby because a den master said I didn’t fill out the form right'…'They said the goal didn’t count because my jersey was out.’”
Central Lakes’ interim coach Heidi Rogge told him, “I can’t imagine a coach thinking that way. I couldn’t be that petty. How can someone feel good calling that?”
[sports.espn.go.com, 6/18/09; orlandosentinel.com, 6/25/09]
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Scientists have proven
that it’s impossible to long-jump 30 feet,
but I don’t listen to that kind of talk. Thoughts like that have a way of
sinking into your feet.
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– Carl Lewis, track and field athlete |
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JOCKS BEHAVING EXCEPTIONALLY
A Medal Ceremony That
Won’t Soon Be Forgotten
At the Kansas State High School Activities Association Track and Field Championships last May, the women’s 3,200-meter relay team from St. Mary’s-Colgan was hoping to repeat as state champs.
In the finals, Colgan’s Emmalia White felt her muscles tightening up halfway through her 800-meter leg. Gutting out the finish, she barely reached her baton out to the next runner before she collapsed onto the track. Her effort enabled the Panthers to cruise to victory and win their second straight state title.
It wasn’t until they were standing on the awards podium that they heard over the intercom that when making her baton pass, White had lunged just over the legal handoff zone. St. Mary’s-Colgan was disqualified. Within seconds, their elation turned to shock.
Second-place finisher Maranatha Academy, which had been preparing for the race for a long time and had devoted themselves to bringing home the medal, was awarded first place.
Which was what made their subsequent decisions all the more laudable.
First, although they’d all seen the violation, they decided to say nothing. “We saw the girl step over the line,” coach Bernie Zarda told The Wichita Eagle afterward, “but if they didn’t call it, we weren’t going to protest it.”
Second, they went to the scorers’ table to try to change the decision but were rebuffed.
Third, they unanimously chose their last option. After being announced state champs, the four girls removed their medals on the podium and handed them to the runners from St. Mary’s-Colgan.
“When we heard ‘Disqualification,’ we started tearing up because we didn’t deserve first place,” said Allison Bailey, who’d run the anchor for Maranatha. “[They] rightfully deserved it.”
“That’s such a class act,” Colgan coach Cathy Oplotnik said afterward. “That’s completely awesome that they would be willing to give up their medals.”
[www.kansas.com, 5/31/09] |
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Celebrate Character and Deliver Results
Character Always, one of our newest products, is a comprehensive classroom management system for grades K-8 based on the Six Pillars of Character.
Developed by teachers, it helps students learn in a positive way that they must be accountable for their actions and that the choices they make reflect their character. Visit here for more information.
Archives of Past Issues
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SUBSCRIBE OR UNSUBSCRIBE
| CHARACTER COUNTS! Chronicle (monthly character-education topics) |
| Commentary (weekly character essays by Michael Josephson) |
| Pursuing Victory With Honor (monthly sportsmanship topics) |
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Flags for Character
Flag football has always been tackle football’s smaller brother, eschewing violence for style, brawn for brains. In New Mexico, the emphasis now is on character thanks to CHARACTER COUNTS!.
Roswell’s annual Hike It and Spike It tournament is the largest flag football contest in the country. This year it attracted 460 teams in 32 brackets. It also implemented Pursuing Victory With Honor principles for the first time.
Event organizers hope that emphasizing sportsmanship will ensure that the participants play and play fair and help maintain the quality family atmosphere that’s fueled the event’s growth in recent years.
For the first time this year, each division recognized a “Team of Character,” which was awarded free entry into next year’s event. Congratulations, Roswell.
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TRIVIA TEST |
After joining the Armed Forces at age 38 to fight in World War I, this sports icon known for making sportsmanship and honor household words returned to America to discover that his entire $75,000 fortune had been lost by a friend through bad investments.
Overcome by shame, his friend committed suicide.
Instead of feeling vindicated, this individual blamed himself for putting too much temptation in his friend’s hands. Determined to make it up to him, he sent a monthly check to the man’s family for the next 30 years.
Who Was This Sports Icon?
See the answer below.
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SPORTSMANSHIP USER’S GUIDE |
The Recreational
Model of Sports
The most basic model of sports views athletic competition as exercise for fun and enjoyment. This objective is the most dominant in sports programs for young children. The primary reason youngsters participate in sports is to have fun. Conversely, lack of fun is the leading reason they drop out.
For many athletes and coaches, sports are fun only if they win. While winning can be a great source of enjoyment, most participants derive fun from other sources (making friends, feeling part of a team, improving skills, and gaining pride in performing well). In one survey of 10,000 high school athletes, winning was neither essential to enjoyment nor a major incentive to participate. It was ranked only eighth by boys and twelfth by girls.
If winning is sports competition’s only objective, as many attest, why do participants continue to compete in a game when winning is unlikely? Why do teams play hard game after game when they no longer have a chance at winning a championship? It’s because sports competition is inherently about striving to do one’s best.
Coaches who adopt the recreational model commonly emphasize these values:
Team importance. One of the great pleasures of sports is the sense of belonging, togetherness, and friendship that flows from team activities.
Balanced competition. Participants usually have more fun when competition is balanced and when all teams and athletes have a reasonable chance to win.
Full participation. Letting only the best players participate puts undue emphasis on winning and deprives many players and families of enjoyment. Playing all athletes results in competitive games and more fun.
Positive coaching. Positive coaches provide a nurturing and confidence-building atmosphere by treating athletes with respect, criticizing in a constructive manner, and stressing affirmation and praise.
For more information on this and other models of sports, go here.
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YOU MAKE THE CALL |
Your high school volleyball team has reached the state finals. Unfortunately, the date is the same as the Senior Prom. Should the team’s seniors go to the Finals or the Prom? Additional factors to consider:
If the senior players play in the Finals, they could conceivably make it to the Prom between 10 and 11 p.m.
If the senior players skip the Finals and attend the Prom, non-starters will fill in for them in the Finals, but the team will probably lose.
The senior players have made numerous commitments to the Prom (their dates, deposits, limos, guests, etc.).
When your school asks the state high school athletic association to reschedule the Finals so the seniors can attend the Prom, you’re turned down.
Should the Seniors
Go to
the Finals or the Prom?*
Click here to vote
* This is based on an actual incident. To find out what the seniors did, go here.
Results of Last Month’s Poll
If you were an NFL owner, would you take Michael Vick?
| Yes. |
32% |
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| No. |
59% |
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| I'm not sure. |
9% |
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PRINCIPLE OF THE MONTH |
Principle Eleven: A Letter
to Parents of Swimmers
Floridian Mike Dunford writes a blog called The Questionable Authority where he muses about “science, learning, and life.” He also works as a deck official at swim meets. Below are some of his suggestions to swimmers’ parents, which could apply to any sports parent.
A personal best is always a victory.
If doesn’t matter if they finish first or dead last. If they swam the event faster than ever before, it’s a victory.
Cheer for your children.
Do not yell at them. Do not tell them they’re swimming poorly. Never, ever ask them what the hell they thought they were doing, particularly in the first ten seconds after they get out of the water.
Cheer for other people’s children.
Your kid is on a team. Support the team. If you’ve got a pair of lungs that can rupture eardrums at 50 feet, why is it I only hear you during a few heats? If you don’t know anyone in a heat, cheer for everyone.
Be a role model for sportsmanship.
Swim meets are like cereal box contests: many will enter, few will win. Your kids are going to get a lot of practice at not winning. Teach them to show as much grace and class when they don’t win that they do when they do win.
Not winning is not the same as losing. There are only two ways to lose in swimming. You can fail to show up or you can give up in the middle. Nobody who tries hard and makes it through the event is a loser. This is particularly true of little kids who take three minutes to finish a 25-yard freestyle.
Respect the officials.
Officials are not there to get rich. Or, for that matter, paid. The majority of officials are parents of swimmers. You can complain about the quality of the officiating, but we will be thinking, “If you think you can do it better, why aren’t you sweating your tail off on this deck?” This is particularly true if you’re complaining about why your kid got dinged while swimmer X did not when there’s only one stroke and turn judge for each end of the pool.
Principle Eleven of the Arizona Sports Summit Accord states that “Everyone involved in competition – including parents – has a duty to honor the traditions of the sport and treat other participants with respect.”
[scienceblogs.com/authority, 5/16/09]
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. Read the full text here.
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SAY WHAT? |
“LeBron James had a benign growth removed from his jaw. The good news is that surgery went fine. The bad news is that he refused to shake hands with his doctors.”
– Dashiell Bennett from Deadspin.com
“You do it all the way through Little League, all the way up to high school or college. After that it’s nonexistent. It’s a great sign of sportsmanship. I’m not against it, but I’m not going to stand on the picket line and wait for that to happen. It probably won’t happen in our time.”
– Seattle Mariners’ first baseman Mike Sweeney on the absence of postgame handshakes in Major League Baseball
“I don’t see anybody in the NFL saying, ‘I’m sorry. I held the guy. Give me 10 yards.’ That doesn’t happen. What separates our sport from other sports is the tradition of sportsmanship when you doff your cap and shake someone’s hand and look them in the eyes and say, ‘Well done.’”
– Golfer Tiger Woods
"I called Tiger Woods last night. I laughed, and I hung up."
– British Open champion Stewart Cink reading one of the top 10 surprising facts about himself on the "Late Show with David Letterman" (Woods failed to make the cut at the Open)
“Los Angeles Dodgers star Manny Ramirez tuned up for his return to the majors with the minor league Albuquerque Isotopes. They play near a nuclear weapons lab. If you think Manny played well on steroids, wait until you see his numbers on uranium.”
– Comedian Argus Hamilton
“If nobody finds out? Well then, it’s not cheating, is it? In motorsports, we work in the gray areas a lot. You’re trying to find where the holes are in the rulebook.”
– IndyCar driver Danica Patrick on whether she would use a performance-enhancing drug to help her win the Indianapolis 500
“She knows what we’ve got on her. She’s a gold digger. I knew that from day one. She’s basically a whore. She shot and killed my dad.”
– NASCAR racer Jeremy Mayfield after being suspended for failing his second drug test and learning that his stepmother sent an affidavit to authorities accusing him of using drugs 30 times
“Okay, first Mrs. Fawcett now Mr. Jackson, please tell me that this is a mistaken rumor, if not this is just as sad as 9/11.”
– Tweet from Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Chad Javon Ochocinco (Chad Johnson) after learning of the deaths of Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson
“I’m sorry to ESPN’s SportsCenter for dominating your highlights all the time. In the interest of fairness, you got to show other people…I would like to apologize for the Joe Buck Show. Someone needs to…I’m sorry about Windows Vista. It’s not the operating system I thought it would be…I apologize for the stock market, the housing market, and the cash-only policy at most farmers markets.”
– Buffalo Bills wide receiver Terrell Owens announcing on Comedy Central that “It’s going to be as busy season. I figure I better get all my future apologies out of the way now.”
"NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell is nearing a ruling on Michael Vick’s case. He’s good at this. Last year he arranged for the Cincinnati Bengals to wear striped uniforms so when they go to prison, they won’t have to change."
– Comedian Argus Hamilton
“She certainly has a distinguished career. The real question is how she views her role as a judge: whether it is to advance causes or groups or whether it is to call balls and strikes.”
– Judiciary Committee member and Senator John Cornyn on Supreme Court Justice nominee Judge Sonia Sotomayor
“When one player plays bad, he must lose. I didn’t play my best tennis, and for that reason I lose. It’s not a tragedy. I had to lose one day. I must accept my defeats with the same level of calm that I accept my victories.”
– Tennis player Rafael Nadal after losing in the French Open after 31 straight wins
“Grunting is one thing, but the shrill sound that you hear – especially when they get louder when they hit a winner – that’s the thing I observe as a player. That’s a distraction to me because you are hearing a loud grunt before you see the shot. You are kind of thrown off guard, and before you know, the ball gets past you.”
– Former tennis player Chris Evert on the difficulty she would have playing with today’s louder, shriller, grunting players
“It would’ve been a hell of a story, wouldn’t it? It wasn't to be…When all is said and done, one of the things I hope that will come out of my life is that my peers will say that Watson, he was a hell of a golfer.”
– 59-year-old Tom Watson after missing a putt on the 18th hole to win the British Open and losing the match in the playoff
~ Classic From the Past ~
“He’s a guy who gets up at six o’clock in the morning regardless of what time it is.”
– Boxing manager Lou Duva
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TRIVIA TEST ANSWER |
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Sportswriter Grantland Rice
His inspirational columns and colorful imagery during the Golden Age of Sports in the first half of the 20th century elevated sportswriting to an art form.
He dubbed the Notre Dame backfield as the “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse,” lionized athletes who epitomized honor and heroics such as Jack Dempsey, Bobby Jones, Bill Tilden, and Red Grange, and penned a poem that became the classic definition of sportsmanship:
For when the one Great Scorer comes
To write against your name,
He marks not that you won or lost,
But how you played the game.
[murfreesboropost.com, 6/14/09]
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MICHAEL JOSEPHSON’S COMMENTARY |
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King James or Spoiled Prince?
You probably heard that LeBron James, nicknamed “King James,” acted like a spoiled prince after his team was soundly thrashed in the game that eliminated his team from the NBA Eastern Conference Finals. more
For an archive of Mr. Josephson’s commentaries, click here.
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CONTACT US |
Josephson Institute
9841 Airport Blvd., Suite 300
Los Angeles, CA 90045
(310) 846-4800
(800) 711-2670
http://CharacterCounts.org/
http://JosephsonInstitute.org/
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CHARACTER COUNTS! Sports, a project of the nonprofit Josephson Institute, leads the Pursuing Victory With Honor sportsmanship campaign. |
