IN THIS ISSUE:

FRONT ROW

Youth Sports:
• Football (Soccer) for Hope
• The Benefits of Title IX
Collegiate Sports: Doing Nothing
Professional Sports: When Bike Chains and Etiquette Break Down
Jocks Behaving Badly: LeBron Marches On
Jocks Behaving Exceptionally: Full-Time Driver, Part-Time Genie
Michael Josephson's Commentary: Doing Sports Right


SIDELINES

Announcements
Trivia Test: Who pitched the most home runs?
You Make the Call: Speed Up or Slow Down?
Principle of the Month: The Beautiful Game Gets Ugly
Say What?
Trivia Test Answer

FRONT ROW

YOUTH SPORTS

Football (Soccer) for Hope


Colombianitos players train together. (Photo by Peter Dench)

While most of the world stopped to watch the final matches of the World Cup, another soccer tournament was under way in the poor township of Alexandra, South Africa. The Football for Hope Festival featured 32 teams from community groups all over the world. Unlike those in the World Cup, these teams were co-ed, and they played just five to a side.

Also unlike the World Cup, Football for Hope explicitly demands good sportsmanship. The youth tournament has no referees, so if players disagree on a play, they have to discuss it among themselves and reach a solution. According to NPR reporter Gideon Long, after each match, the two teams meet to talk about the game. They can even award their opponents extra points for fair play.

Max Watson, the leader of the U.S. team, told Long, "I enjoy how teams have to come to a consensus. It's not just an argument. And if it is, they will sit there until we sort it out ourselves."

In 2007 FIFA partnered with streetfootballworld, a nonprofit group promoting social change through soccer. Their network includes 80 local initiatives all over the world. Long says the community groups have one thing in common: "They all use soccer to try to make the world a better place."

The Cambodian team uses soccer to bring kids together so they can also learn about land mines. Teams from Africa focus on HIV/AIDS education. The Peace Team lives up to its name by fielding both Israelis and Palestinians.

In the final match of this year’s tournament, the Mathare Youth Sports Association (MYSA) from Kenya took on the Search and Groom Youth for Development Centre from Nigeria. MYSA runs programs for thousands of boys and girls in Mathare, one of Africa’s largest slums. Their programs include environmental clean-up, AIDS prevention, leadership training, libraries, drama, and dance. Based in Lagos, Search and Groom fights corruption and promotes ethnic harmony.

MYSA won the final in a penalty shoot-out, but during the awards ceremony the Cambodian team, winner of the Fair Play Award, got the standing ovation.

* * *

The Benefits of Title IX

A judge's recent ruling that competitive cheer is not a sport has led some to claim that Title IX has outlived its usefulness. Women outnumber men on college campuses, and more women are playing sports than ever before. The critics of the law may be right, but new research suggests Title IX has done wonders to increase gender equality and improve the nation as a whole.

Betsey Stevenson, who teaches at University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, found a way to assess the impact of high school sports on women’s lives. She measured boy’s pre-Title IX sports participation, estimated the increase in girls’ participation, and measured that against post-Title IX census data on female education and employment.

Stevenson’s conclusion: playing sports makes people more productive members of society. Her research suggests that up to 40% of the growth in employment for young women is attributable to their increased athletic opportunities.

Writing in The Boston Globe, Keith O’Brien summarizes the findings: "States that required the greatest growth in female sports under Title IX... saw the greatest growth in women’s workforce participation in the 1980s and ’90s. And the states that required the least growth in female sports... saw the smallest gains in women’s workforce participation."

The gains in education and workforce participation were substantial: "Title IX was also responsible for one-fifth of the rise of female educational attainment for the generation that followed the new policy, as well as a 10 percent increase in women working full time, and a 12 percent spike in women in traditionally male-dominated occupations, such as accounting, law, and veterinary medicine."

What conclusion can we draw from Stevenson’s conclusions? If school administrators continue to balance their budgets by eliminating sports teams, everyone loses.

COLLEGIATE SPORTS

Doing Nothing

Sometimes doing nothing is the right thing to do.

When Ole Miss played Auburn on October 31, 2009, Auburn safety Zac Etheridge tackled Rodney Scott, freshman running back for Ole Miss. With Etheridge on top of him, Scott immediately sensed something was wrong. Instead of jumping up or wriggling out from under him, Scott remained still to avoid causing further injury to Etheridge. He lay there motionless for ten minutes while doctors worked on Etheridge.

Auburn head coach Gene Chizik said, "It was one of the most amazing things I've seen. I've got to give that young man (Scott) a lot of credit. I don't know how he knew he couldn't move."

Etheridge was taken to a hospital, where doctors discovered that he’d torn ligaments attached to his spine and cracked a vertebra. (He has recovered.)

For his quick thinking and not moving, Scott won the SEC Sportsmanship Award, and he is nominated for the national NCAA Sportsmanship Award. That will be announced in August, but the odds have recently stacked against him: On June 22, he was arrested for disturbing the peace. Scott allegedly fought with another man after the man keyed his car.

If only he’d remembered to do nothing!

PROFESSIONAL SPORTS

When Bicycle Chains and Etiquette Break Down

Despite the doping scandals, cycling is a sport of manners. When a competitor crashes or experiences technical difficulties, it’s common courtesy to slow to a crawl and allow the competitor to catch up. The unstated argument is: I’ve no wish to seize upon your bad luck; I shall beat you fair and square.

This year’s Tour de France may signal the end of all that. In the 15th of the 20 stages, Luxembourger Andy Schleck had a 31-second lead over his Spanish friend Alberto Contador. On the last big climb of the Port de Bales, Schleck was attacking when his bicycle chain came loose. Was it bad luck? A bad shift on his part? Regardless, he got stuck on the side of the road trying to fix his chain.

Schleck had crashed in an earlier stage, and Contador was one of the riders who waited for him. At this late stage, however, the stakes were higher, and Contador pedaled right past him at full speed. At the end of the day, Contador had gained 39 seconds.

Was Contador’s move unsportsmanlike? Schleck thought so. He told reporters, "In the same situation, I would not have taken advantage." The 150-pounder added, "My stomach is full of anger and I want to take my revenge."

Fans seemed to agree with Schleck, booing and whistling at Contador when he stepped to the podium and donned the yellow jersey.

Contador claimed he hadn’t noticed that Schleck was having mechanical problems, though that seems unlikely. Later Contador said, "I knew there would be a debate after that, but I attacked before I knew he had a problem with his chain, and I was already ahead when I knew it."

That night Contador apologized to Schleck on YouTube, and it looks like their friendship will survive.

When the riders finally reached the finish line in Paris, Alberto Contador was the winner, ahead of Schleck by 39 seconds.

What do you think? Should Contador have waited? Make the call in the righthand column.

JOCKS BEHAVING BADLY

LeBron Marches On

On July 1st, LeBron James became the most sought-after free agent in NBA history. He and "Team LeBron" spent the next week manufacturing enough hype to gain over nine million viewers for an hour-long ESPN show devoted entirely to where the superstar will play next. The show was called "The Decision," but ESPN columnist Bill Simmons more accurately called it "The LeBacle." Sports blogger Andrew Sharp dubbed the whole eight-day circus "The Festival of LeBronnukah."

What did LeBron decide? To join his friends Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh on the Miami Heat. As he put it, "I'm taking my talents to South Beach."

Cleveland fans were crushed. Their city hasn’t won a major sports championship since 1964, and LeBron was their great homegrown hope. Raised in Akron, he knew what it was like to be a Cleveland fan. He knew about all the heartbreaking moments (The Drive, The Fumble, and The Shot), and he knew they looked to him to change all that.

Instead he gave them "The Decision." "I had to do what was best for LeBron James," he said. That's fine, but did he have to do a one-hour special about it? As one ESPN reader put it, "The Decision" was like "dumping your wife on the Jumbotron. At the Superbowl."

Writer Paula Duffy says LeBron's behavior should come as no surprise. During games, he and his Cleveland teammates often crossed the line between exuberance and effrontery, celebrating too much, gloating, even turning the standard pre-game high-fiving of teammates into an elaborately choreographed thirty-second handshake.

In the 2009 Eastern Conference Finals, LeBron's Cavaliers lost to the Orlando Magic. LeBron was friends with Orlando's star Dwight Howard, but when the buzzer sounded, LeBron headed straight for the locker room. No handshake, no offer of congratulations, no interviews.

Then there was the incident at his Nike basketball camp: someone dunked on LeBron, and someone else videotaped it.  "Video of the happening," Duffy writes, "was kept off the Internet and not only wasn't anyone speaking on the record about it, but LeBron and his entourage wouldn't entertain questions at all."

LeBron's ego seems to be so over-inflated it can't take the slightest hit. He has a lot of growing up to do. But we fans have some growing up to do, too. We can't defend and celebrate the bad behavior of our city's or school's athletes as long as they're winning games for us, and then get upset when their callousness and conceit turns against us. As Duffy rightly concludes, "You reap what you sow."

JOCKS BEHAVING EXCEPTIONALLY

Full-Time Driver, Part-Time Genie

In May, NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt, Jr. granted his 200th wish for the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

During NASCAR's All-Star Weekend, Earnhardt showed 15-year-old Jeffrey Buzzell around his racing facility and then took him back to his house to race go-karts around his private track.

Before the race the next day, Buzzell, who suffers from Alport syndrome, got a tour of the garage and pit area, and watched the race from the Joe Gibbs suite. Afterward he said, "I had the time of my life and I will never forget my amazing trip or the amazing people I met."

Since 1980, the Make-A-Wish foundation has granted the wishes of nearly 200,000 children with life-threatening illnesses around the world. For more information, go to wish.org.

MICHAEL JOSEPHSON'S COMMENTARY

Doing Sports Right

When I was a kid playing sports, there were no clubs, travel teams, or private coaches. Except for summer baseball leagues, the primary place to play was high school. When I was in the 10th grade, I wanted to play basketball in the worst way.

Unfortunately, given my size and talent, that's how I played. But in those days, sports was part of the educational program and, to accommodate every kid who wanted to play, there were four skill levels – varsity, junior varsity, B, and C teams.

I was a third-stringer on the C team. My ambition was to play in 12 quarters during the season, the minimum requirement for a letterman’s jacket.

Fortunately, the coach liked my spunk, so he'd put me in at the end of games when I could do no harm. In the last quarter of the last game, he made sure I got my letter by giving me an eight-second stint. Although I think I played less than two minutes of total game time during that season, I was part of the team and played in every practice.

Three years later, I was the only senior on the C team but I was a starter! Of all my high school achievements, none was more important than my three basketball letters.

It wasn't just recreation for me. It was education. My sports experience strengthened my character and helped me develop important life skills including goal-setting, preparation, and perseverance. It also taught me about honor and sportsmanship.

So when you read chilling stories about cheating coaches, out-of-control fans, or spoiled athletes, don’t blame sports. Blame those who don't do it right.

This is Michael Josephson reminding you that character counts.

For an archive of Mr. Josephson’s commentaries, click here.

	ANNOUNCEMENTS
Keep Character Close to Your Heart Ringed with the Six Pillars, these new CHARACTER COUNTS! IN MY WORLD pins show where your emphasis is. Perfect for rewards! (Aluminum offset printed with epoxy dome. Diameter 1") Pursue victory with honor on and off the field with our new PVWH pins. (Aluminum offset printed with epoxy dome. 1.25") Shop now » * * * Logrando la Victoria con Honor Last month, Luis G. Fortuño, the Governor of Puerto Rico, celebrated the island's adoption of Logrando la Victoria Con Honor (Pursuing Victory with Honor) and the beginning of the XXI Central American and Caribbean Games in Mayaguez. Thirty-one countries are participating in the games. This partnership between the Josephson Institute and the government of Puerto Rico aims to promote ethical values, leadership, and sportsmanship in all sports activities in Puerto Rico. It is part of a larger initiative, Tus Valores Cuentan (Character Counts!), which aims to teach the Six Pillars of Character to all youth on the island.
	TRIVIA TEST
Who pitched the most home runs in Major League history? See the answer below.
	YOU MAKE THE CALL
Did Alberto Contador violate cycling etiquette by racing past Andy Schleck on the Port de Bales climb? For background on this incident, see "When Bicycle Chains and Etiquette Break Down" in the lefthand column. Yes. The true winner wants to win when his or her competitors are at their best. No. The goal is to win, and you don't win by allowing your competitor's mistakes to go unpunished. Cycling is for Europeans. Pass the Freedom Fries! Click here to vote Results of Last Month’s Poll Should Armando Galarraga have gotten credit for a perfect game? Yes. Galarraga deserves to be credited for a perfect game, and MLB should officially recognize it. 30% No. The fact that the call stands adds weight to Joyce’s apology and Galarraga’s grace. 67% I'm not sure. 1%
	PRINCIPLE OF THE MONTH
Principle Six: The Beautiful Game Gets Ugly Principle Six of the Arizona Sports Summit Accord states, "All sports participants must consistently demonstrate and demand scrupulous integrity and observe and enforce the spirit as well as the letter of the rules." For many Americans, the World Cup is a quadrennial festival of soccer-bashing: the scores are too low; the clock goes up instead of down; there are no TV timeouts for trips to the fridge; and of course, the players hit the ground and roll around in agony if a defender enters the same zip code. If you watched this year’s World Cup, you witnessed moments when the spirit and letter of the rules went right out the window: In the Round of 16, with Germany beating England by one goal, German goalkeeper Manuel Neuer watched a shot from England's Frank Lampard hit the crossbar and bounce inside the goal line. Neuer quickly kicked the ball away in an attempt to fool the referee into thinking the ball hadn’t gone in. His trick worked, and the English team never bounced back. In the waning moments of a quarterfinal match against Ghana, Uruguayan striker Luis Suarez purposely blocked a shot on goal with his hand, a totally unsportsman-like play that led to a missed Ghanaian penalty shot and victory for Uruguay. In the final match, the Dutch goon squad basically punched and kicked the finesse right out of the Spanish, and it was only at the end of extra time that the Spanish team was able to score. At one point, Dutchman Nigel de Jong basically dropkicked Spaniard Xabi Alonso in the chest. Can FIFA put a stop to this? Probably not without instant replay and some rules changes. But the biggest change would have to come from the players themselves, choosing to compete with integrity. It's not too much to ask. After all, sportsmanship is already embedded in the game: When a player is injured and an opposing player has the ball, the one with the ball will kick it out of bounds to allow the injured player to be attended to. When play resumes, instead of taking advantage of the possession, the other team returns possession to the team that had the ball. Also, soccer players routinely swap jerseys at the end of every game. What could be a better display of sportsmanship than to peel off your sweat-soaked jersey and trade it for another guy’s sweat-soaked jersey, which you then put on? This is one of those rare instances in the universe when the gross and the classy intersect. (Another is the gourmet cheesesteak.) If they can just extend that type of behavior to the rest of the game, that would be beautiful. 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.
	SAY WHAT?
"If anything, the rule book supporting the bogus concept of 'amateur athletics' is akin to the laws that supported Jim Crow, denied women suffrage and upheld slavery." –FOXSports.com sportswriter Jason Whitlock "What such an endless exhibition really tells us is that games today last excessively long and must have a proper tiebreaker to end it. 70-68 is not natural; it is Botox tennis." –Sportswriter and NPR commentator Frank DeFord, on the 11-hour Wimbledon match between John Isner and Nicolas Mahut "I'm just happy knowing that the Big Ten now has 12 teams and the Big 12 has 10 teams." –ESPN sportswriter Jim Caple on the NCAA conference reshuffling "Bring on the NFL. Sure it's violent, primitive, misogynistic, militaristic, chauvinistic. But at least it wears its true nature on its sleeve." –Globe & Mail writer Gerald Caplan, reacting to a disappointing 2010 World Cup. "I told them they could no longer be heroes for our children. They have destroyed the dreams of their countrymen, their friends and supporters." –French Sports Minister Roselyne Bachelot on her lecture to the French national soccer team after their boycott of a training session during the World Cup. "The World Cup brought soccer fans from all over the world to South Africa this weekend. The quarterfinals included Germany and Paraguay and Uruguay and Brazil. For all the Nazi-hunters from the Simon Wiesenthal Center it was like a farmers market."  –Comedian Argus Hamilton "There's no way, with hindsight, I would've ever called up Larry, called up Magic and said, 'Hey, look, let's get together and play on one team.'" –Michael Jordan, on LeBron James' move to the Miami Heat "I wanted to do what was best for LeBron James." –Basketball player LeBron James on LeBron James' "The Decision" (featuring LeBron James) "If we are ever to witness if not accept the final demise of the athlete-hero and his or her replacement with the athlete-entertainer, the LeBron-athon may in fact be that tipping point." –Former Ironman World Champion Scott Tinley "They paid a 71-year-old Russian physicist a six-figure sum to telepathically send the team positive energy. He lives outside Boston, and watched the games on TV." –FOXSports.com columnist Mark Kriegel, on Dodgers owners Frank and Jamie McCourt "Don't take this wrong, but they take advantage of us. We bring a Japanese player and they are very good and they bring all these privileges to them. We bring a Dominican kid ... go to the minor leagues, good luck. Good luck." –Chicago White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen on Major League Baseball's treating Asian and Latino players differently. "We call this in the television business the tap-dance and people know we can't dance. Can you... gotta little tap for us down there?" –Unidentified ESPN announcer to Kevin Harvick pit crew member Kenyatta Houston, who is black "There's a plan. First, fireworks. Next, free tacos for everyone. Then, Black Eyed Peas concert. Then a few remarks: Bill Clinton, Lewis Lapham, Francis Fukuyama, Yogi Berra. Last, I will sit for an interview with Jim Gray at the Greenwich, Conn., Boys & Girls Club." –Alex Rodriguez's 600th home run, explaining its celebration plans to The Wall Street Journal's Jason Gay ~ Classic From the Past ~ "A champion is someone who gets up when he can't." –Heavyweight boxer Jack Dempsey (1895-1983)
	TRIVIA TEST ANSWER
The Philadelphia Phillies' Jamie Moyer broke Robin Roberts' record on June 27th when he gave up his 506th home run. Moyer, who is still pitching at age 47, did not celebrate, but he has plenty to be proud of. As ESPN's Rick Reilly notes, "To be able to give up more home runs than anybody in history, they have to keep handing you the ball. You're that good. You hand out more bombs than Raytheon, but they don't care. They still give you the ball and point you toward that hill."
	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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