IN THIS ISSUE:

FRONT ROW

Youth Sports: No Blues in St. Louis
Collegiate Sports: Pay for Play?
Professional Sports: The Umpires Strike Back
Jocks Behaving Badly: There's No Kicking in Baseball
Jocks Behaving Exceptionally: The Ethical Sailor
Michael Josephson's Commentary: Coaching for Character

SIDELINES

Announcements
Trivia Test: First Athlete to Come Out?
You Make the Call: Pay College Athletes?
Principle of the Month: Consequences
Say What?
Trivia Test Answer

FRONT ROW

YOUTH SPORTS

No Blues in St. Louis

With all the attention the bad news gets, one could be forgiven for thinking American sportsmanship is going the way of the baseball stirrup. But the stories of Megan Wood and Jimmy Myers, this year's St. Louis Sports Commission Associates' Sportsmanship Award winners, will warm the heart of the coldest cynic.

As a student at Washington High School, Wood was recognized for her great sportsmanship in cross country, basketball, soccer, and track and field. One particular incident occurred during a cross-country meet. According to the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, "As Megan passed a competitor in the final half-mile of a race, she told the athlete to run with her, push on and 'you can do it.' The competing runner finished ahead of Megan, yet Megan celebrated her achievement, congratulating her on a terrific race. The competitor's father witnessed the exchange and was so moved that he wrote a letter to Washington's athletic director praising Megan."

In her scholarship essay, Megan displays wisdom well beyond her 18 years: "I commend those who have the audacity to encourage an opponent, because they do it out of the kindness in their heart, never for glory. In my book, sports are played not for winning – that only lasts a second; but for playing fair, having fun, and giving back, because a kind, encouraging word or deed can make all the difference in living life to its fullest."

Wood's co-recipient Jimmy Myers was captain of the Westminster Christian Academy's tennis team. He played in the number one spot and, according to his coach Nathan Talley, "did so with an attitude of grace, humility, and kindness." He spent the season encouraging his teammates to give opponents more than the cursory after-match handshake, suggesting eye contact and sincere compliments.

In his own matches, Myers played with passion but never lost his self-control, even when his opponents were obviously cheating on line calls.

Coach Talley told the Globe-Democrat about one particular match when Jimmy was winning easily, but he and his opponent joked and laughed as they passed each other on the changeovers: "As I watched that, I actually got teary because that's so much of what it's about: enjoying the sport and the people you meet because of the sport. Having fun with people and never at others' expense. Most high school kids don't understand or demonstrate this."

Maybe not. But with more examples set by athletes like Wood and Myers, hopefully more kids will.

COLLEGIATE SPORTS

Pay for Play?

This summer the NCAA has continued to crack down on schools that violate the strict rules protecting the "amateur" status of its athletes. The Committee on Infractions is investigating improper contact between agents and athletes from UNC Chapel Hill, Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina. In June the Committee hit USC with severe sanctions for running back Reggie Bush's acceptance of money and gifts from agents.

Meanwhile, conference reshuffling is generating millions of dollars for the big schools in television money, and the coaches are already paid astronomical salaries. In August, football coach Nick Saban compared agents to "pimps." As Frank Deford pointed out on NPR's Morning Edition, "Nick Saban makes $4 million a year from Alabama, plus something else again in side deals. And while he takes home this lollapalooza, all the players he coaches are forbidden, by antiquated amateur rules, to earn a living."

Is it time to pay the athletes who play these revenue-earning sports?

FoxSports.com's Jason Whitlock says yes. In July Whitlock wrote a fiery column castigating the NCAA for its exploitation of student-athletes. He supplied this damning quote from Walter Byers, former President of the NCAA: "Today the NCAA Presidents Commission is preoccupied with tightening a few loose bolts in a worn machine, firmly committed to the neo-plantation belief that the enormous proceeds from college games belong to the overseers (administrators) and supervisors (coaches). The plantation workers performing in the arena may only receive those benefits authorized by the overseers."

Taking the plantation metaphor and running with it, Whitlock likens Reggie Bush to Kunta Kinte. Coaches and schools make millions off of men's basketball and football programs, while poor, mostly black student-athletes are "compensated in a currency (a shot at a compromised education in their spare time) many of them don't respect and haven't been properly prepared to use."

Can these student-athletes actually be students? Or do their athletic activities take up all of their time?

The NCAA rules say coaches can demand only 20 hours per week from their athletes. But a 2008 NCAA survey showed that during the season many athletes put in twice that. As reported in USA Today, the 1,600 football players who took the survey spent "an average of 44.8 hours a week on their sport – playing games, practicing, training and in the training room – compared with a little less than 40 hours on academics." The 417 basketball players spent on average 36.8 hours per week on their sport and 33.9 on academics. (There were no numbers for how much of the time devoted to academics was spent unintentionally napping.)

Add to that compromised education the uncertainty players face – the possibility of injury, the improbability of making it as a professional athlete – and one shouldn't be surprised that some players take the money agents offer them.

What can we do about it? Whitlock suggests, "Work to destroy the NCAA and every other institution in support of the amateur lie."

Professional sports agent Donald Yee offers a more nuanced approach in a recent Washington Post opinion piece. Yee suggests the big schools "lease the rights to operate a commercial football program on behalf of the university to an independent, outside company." So a USC Football, Inc. could run USC's program. The corporation would negotiate marketing and television deals, pay the players, and share revenue with the university. Yee suggests we admit college football is a business, treat it like a business, and make it follow business laws.

Frank Deford suggests yet another option: let high-school players sign with agents. Then, out in the open, agents could pay their players while they're in college, motivated by the possibility of cashing in when those players turn pro. "It would simply be a futures market," Deford says, "and if the player is hurt or fails to pan out, he owes nothing to his agent. Hey, sometimes there is a drought that sinks soybean futures, too."

What do you think? Should college athletes be paid? If so, how? Take the poll by clicking on the link in the right-hand column.

PROFESSIONAL SPORTS

The Umpires Strike Back

On July 31st at a game in the independent Golden Baseball League in San Diego, Edmonton Capitals Manager Brent Bowers directed a despicable, expletive-filled, anti-gay diatribe at umpire Billy Van Raaphorst.

Van Raaphorst, who is 6-foot-4 and weighs 220 pounds, and who used to play center for San Diego State's football team, heroically resisted the urge to respond with physical violence.

After a knee injury ended his football career, Van Raaphorst pursued umpiring. He graduated first in his class from the Harry Wendelstedt Umpire School, the Harvard of umpire schools, according to FoxSports.com's Jason Whitlock. He worked his way up to Double-A Baseball in 2001. Only then did he begin quietly pursuing a relationship with another man. At the same time, his ranking fell to 27 and then to 45, and then the minors sent him packing. Now, Whitlock reports, Van Raaphorst is "regarded as a top-flight collegiate umpire."

Says Van Raaphorst, "I can't prove that [my umpire crew] found out, but it's my belief they did. I started getting a lot of questions about who I was dating."

The good news is that tolerance seems to be increasing. After the incident in San Diego, the Golden Baseball League only suspended Bowers for two games, but Van Raaphorst's fellow umpires threatened a work stoppage until Bowers was forced to resign. Moved by their support, Van Raaphorst said, "I always knew we had each other's back. I didn't know it ran this deep."

With Bowers gone, the Edmonton Capitals have announced they're putting their employees through diversity training, and they've invited Van Raaphorst to umpire two games in Edmonton and talk to the team. Jim Buzinski of Outsports.com reports that Van Raaphorst has received over 1,000 Facebook messages from gay athletes, straight athletes, parents, and even preachers, applauding his courage and restraint and thanking him for his bravery. Many have called him a hero.

JOCKS BEHAVING BADLY

There's No Kicking in Baseball

Before the Cincinnati Reds faced the St. Louis Cardinals in an important series last August, Cincinnati player Brandon Phillips called the Cardinals a bunch of "complainers," among other things. Not very sportsmanlike, but he didn't seem to think it was a big deal. When he approached home plate to lead off for the Reds in the bottom of the first, he tapped St. Louis catcher Yadier Molina's shin guard with his bat in a friendly gesture of greeting.

Molina took offense. He said later, "He talked bad about my team, he talked bad about me. Don't talk bad and come up and say 'hi' to me. That's stupid." Molina stood up and had words with Phillips. Immediately the benches cleared, and there was pushing and shoving, much talk, more pushing, some punching, and even some kicking by Red's pitcher Johnny Cueto. His metal spikes left cuts on Cardinals Chris Carpenter and Jason LaRue, and a well-placed kick left LaRue with a concussion.

The umpires ejected both managers but no players. Molina later hit a home run to help the Cards to an 8-4 victory and a tie for the lead in the NL Central.

A couple of days later Major League Baseball suspended Cueto for seven games, and managers La Russa and Baker for two each. Phillips, widely recognized as the true instigator of the brawl, was fined, along with Molina, but otherwise went unpunished.

Phillips has his apologists. Some think he was just being competitive, just trying to fire up his team to take on the reigning champions. Chicago Cubs centerfielder Marlon Byrd told ESPN, "When you have competition against the same teams over and over again, you start to develop a hate. It's not like you want to kill them, but you want to beat them.... I just think that's healthy competition."

Bleacher Report writer Mike Pendleton goes further: "Phillips mouthing off about the Cardinals is exactly what baseball needed." Pendleton thinks baseball's audience will grow if the Cards and Reds give them some bloodshed.

He's wrong. Baseball should be better than that. "Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball," cultural historian Jacques Barzun famously wrote in his 1954 book God's Country and Mine. "Accuracy and speed, the practiced eye and the hefty arm, the mind to take in and readjust to the unexpected, the possession of more than one talent and the willingness to work in harness without special orders, these are the American virtues that shine in baseball."

He didn't say anything about kicking people in the head with your cleats.

JOCKS BEHAVING EXCEPTIONALLY

The Ethical Sailor

In August the Chicago Yacht Club held its annual North American Challenge Cup, a regatta for disabled sailors.  After the races were finished, results tallied, and awards ready to be presented, Kristi Walker, winner of the 2.4-meter class, discovered a scoring error.

Walker told the second-place finisher Nigist Sewnnet, and together the sailors informed the Race Committee of the mistake and asked that they recalculate the scores. They did, and Sewnnet became the winner.

Anne Rundle, who sits on the Race Committee, told sail-world.com, "It was pretty powerful that the woman who was scored initially as winning, came up to the real winner, Nigist, to inform her there was a mistake and it needed to be corrected."

MICHAEL JOSEPHSON'S COMMENTARY

Coaching for Character

I've spent lots of time with some of the world's most successful coaches, and many think about character a lot, especially traits that are important to winning: self-discipline, perseverance, resiliency, and courage. They pay less attention to virtues that make a good person, citizen, spouse, or parent: honesty, integrity, responsibility, compassion, respect, and fairness.

The problem is, even at the amateur level, many coaches are hired and paid to win, not to build character. Unless it interferes with performance, worrying about the kind of people athletes are off the field is a waste of time.

Coaches who seek to hone the mental and physical skills of winning while ignoring moral virtues of honor and decency too often produce magnificent competitors who are menaces to society.

Perhaps coaches of elite athletes not connected with educational or youth-serving institutions can operate in this moral vacuum, but all others have a responsibility to teach, enforce, advocate, and model aspects of good character such as trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, fairness, caring, and citizenship.

Whether it's sports, business, or politics, whenever we divorce issues of competence from character, we create a class of amoral professionals who think they're exempt from common standards of honor and decency. This discredits and demeans the moral standing of everyone involved.

This is Michael Josephson reminding you that character counts.

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

	ANNOUNCEMENTS
Our Fall Catalog Is Here! Check out all of the new items we've added to enrich your curriculum and help transform your classroom at every grade level. We'd love to mail you a copy. Click here to send one on its way. While you're waiting, you can flip through our virtual catalog or shop the online store. * * * Seeking Inspiration for a CC! Mural at Your School? Check out the brilliant murals painted by students in the Tus Valores Cuentan (CHARACTER COUNTS!) program in Puerto Rico. For a Google-translated-to-English version of the site, click here. Vote for your favorite! Visit our YouTube channel to see Puerto Rico's First Lady and three of the young muralists discussing the program (in Spanish). * * * Learn Character-Building Skills in One of Our Sportsmanship Seminars Josephson Institute offers customized half- or full-day seminars for coaches, administrators, counselors, officials, and youth-group leaders. Our workshops help you integrate character and sportsmanship into your school or youth sports program in a way that is meaningful, measurable, and sustainable. Learn more »
	TRIVIA TEST
Who is the first professional team-sport athlete to come out of the closet? See the answer below.
	YOU MAKE THE CALL
Should revenue-generating college athletes be paid? For background on this issue, see "Pay for Play?" in the lefthand column. Yes. Let the athletes sign with agents. Yes. Let the schools pay the athletes. No. It would destroy the purity of collegiate sports. I don't know. Remember when sports used to be about sports? Click here to vote Results of Last Month’s Poll Did Alberto Contador violate cycling etiquette by racing past Andy Schleck in the Tour de France? Yes. The true winner wants to win when his or her competitors are at their best. 64% No.The goal is to win. You can't allow your competitor's mistakes to go unpunished. 26% Cycling is for Europeans. Pass the Freedom Fries! 9%
	PRINCIPLE OF THE MONTH
Principle Four: Consequences Principle Four of the Arizona Sports Summit Accord states, "Participation in athletic programs is a privilege, not a right. To earn that privilege, athletes must conduct themselves, on and off the field, as positive role models who exemplify good character." Some professional athletes never got that message. Just in the month of August: New York Met Francisco Rodriquez argued with his girlfriend and then assaulted her father; Indiana Pacers draft pick Lance Stephenson pushed his girlfriend down a flight of stairs and smacked her head into a step; and former Carolina Panthers linebacker Mark Fields assaulted his ex-girlfriend (and mother of his six-year-old daughter) outside of a childcare center. What have been the consequences of these crimes? Rodriguez tore a ligament in the thumb of his pitching hand, so his season is over and the Mets might be able to terminate his $37 million contract. Michael McCann, sports law writer for Sports Illustrated, writes that the Uniform Players Contract allows a team to terminate a contract if a player "fails, refuses, or neglects to conform his personal conduct to the standards of good citizenship and good sportsmanship or to keep himself in first-class physical condition or to obey the club's training rules." But the Players' Association could force the Mets to pay Rodriguez the bulk of his salary. Jeff Benedict, also writing for SI, says, "The team ought to consider voiding the contract based simply on the fact that an assault was committed on team property. Most employers wouldn't hesitate to dump an employee that displayed violent behavior in the workplace, particularly if he was arrested." The Pacers' Lance Stephenson has been shielded from the consequences of his bad actions before: when he was a top high-school recruit, he was accused of sexually abusing a 17-year-old girl. The charge was reduced to disorderly conduct, and the University of Cincinnati promptly offered him a scholarship. A year later, he was drafted by the Pacers. Reacting to Stephenson's recent crime, Pacers President and basketball legend Larry Bird said, "Once all the facts are known we will deal appropriately with Lance so that he, the team, and the entire Pacers community understands that this message cannot be ignored." Jeff Benedict writes in response: "The only person who needs a clear message is Stephenson.... The game is doing him no favors by enabling him to keep skirting responsibility for his actions. Until his case is resolved, the last place he should be is in an NBA uniform." Unlike Rodriguez and Stephenson, Mark Fields, the former Carolina Panther, has no moneyed interests to protect him. He's charged with felony aggravated assault, interfering with an educational institution, and misdemeanor child endangerment. These athletes are the "amoral professionals" Michael Josephson warns of in his commentary "Coaching for Character" (left-hand column). They failed to develop their character in tandem with their physical abilities, and they believe themselves exempt from the law. Coaches, managers, team presidents, and league officials should do everything they can to change that perception. Elite athletes must suffer the consequences of their bad actions, especially if those actions involve inflicting violence on people who are smaller and weaker than they are.   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?
"Sources from three separate universities told the Sun-Times that Davis Sr. asked for money in return for his son's commitment, with the amounts ranging from $125,000 to $150,000." –Chicago Sun-Times reporter Michael O'Brien on top high-school basketball player Anthony Davis, alleged to have taken $200,000 to attend the University of Kentucky "What if we find out that steroids were NOT the cause of the home runs, not even a little bit? What if we find out that the home runs were the cause of a livelier ball and a smaller strike zone and harder bats and the willingness of players to swing hard even if it means striking out and smaller ballparks and pitch counts?" –Sports Illustrated writer Joe Posnanski on Eric Walker’s "Steroids, Other ‘Drugs,’ and Baseball" "What we're now left with, in essence, are the skeletal remains of the world's best golfer." –ESPN.com's Jason Sobel on Tiger Woods' disastrous performance at the WSG-Bridgestone Invitational "It allegedly means that a guy who works out a lot and then stops can build up testosterone and pixies can walk onto the field from the magical forest and wave their magic wands and HCG can inexplicably appear in urine."  –ESPN.com's Tim Keown on "Overtrained Athlete Syndrome," Texans linebacker Brian Cushing's excuse for testing positive for Human Chorionic Gonadotropin "I turn around and I've got Cueto kicking me in the back with his spikes. It's super unprofessional. I don't know where he learned how to fight." –St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Chris Carpenter after a bench-clearing brawl interrupted a game against the Cincinnati Reds. "He was a symbol of pretty much everything that is wrong with sports in our society today, from its deification of athletes to its extorting of public money from cities in order to enrich team owners, to its sacrifice of sportsmanship at the altar of winning." –The Reporter Online writer Donald Kaul, eulogizing late Yankees-owner George Steinbrenner "Whether replay is altogether proscribed, used minimally or employed thoroughly and microscopically, apparently there is no sporting event the officials cannot hijack and ruin." –FoxSports.com's Kevin Hench "I knew I'd fouled and I couldn't live with myself if I knew I'd pulled a shifty to get the chocolates."  –Australian snooker player Shawn Budd on calling a foul on himself that cost him Melbourne, Australia's RACV Club Snooker Championship. ''I can promise you this: Not that I have ever set out as a goal to play 20 years, it's 20 years and I'm done. This is the last year of my contract. I'm sure a lot of people are like, 'Yes!''' – Minnesota Vikings quarterback Brett Favre in his last(?) welcome-back press conference "What makes Clemens so insufferable is a brand of hubris worthy of federal prosecution. It wasn't enough to be a better pitcher. He had to frame himself as a better man." –FoxSports.com's Mark Kriegel ~ Classic From the Past ~ "If a woman has to choose between catching a fly ball and saving an infant's life, she will choose to save the infant's life without even considering if there is a man on base." –Dave Barry, writer
	TRIVIA TEST ANSWER
NFL running back David Kopay came out in 1975, three years after he retired. He played from 1964-1972 for San Francisco, Detroit, Washington, New Orleans, and Green Bay.
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