Our Centers for Ethics:

Ethics, Values, and Sportsmanship Survey 2009

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A survey of members of the American Baseball Coaches Association
By Michael Josephson

In December 2008, we asked members of the American Baseball Coaches Association to fill out an online survey on Ethics, Values, and Sportsmanship prepared by Michael Josephson of Josephson Institute. More than 1,250 members responded, including college, high school, club, and youth organization coaches.

See a summary of responses here. Detailed item-by-item reports are also available, sorted by age of coach, sport level of coach, and years in coaching.

Online survey for student-athletes
Please encourage your athletes to take this survey, then discuss it with them.

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE SURVEY OF BASEBALL COACHES

Consensus opinions and values. Although there was significant disagreement on most questions and marked differences in responses of baseball coaches in college, high school, club, and youth organizations from various age categories, a clear and overwhelming agreement on certain statements establish a few consensus ethical principles:

• Coaches can and should teach values and affect on- and off-the-field conduct. Ninety-four percent believe high school coaches could, if they choose to, influence the values and conduct of their athletes, and 99 percent say coaches should do what they can to reduce cheating on exams and shoplifting.
• Coaches think they positively affect integrity values. Nearly two-thirds (65%) believe that high school coaches effectively influence their athletes not to cheat and, as a result, believe that high school baseball players cheat less than the average high school student.
• Baseball players cheat more than others. A 2006 survey of high school athletes proved the coaches were wrong: 69% of all baseball players cheated on an exam within the past year compared to 65% of all varsity athletes and 63% of high school students not engaged in varsity athletics.

Attitude and conduct patterns based on the age of the coach can dramatically impact values and conduct regarding what is cheating and what is acceptable gamesmanship (i.e., part of the game). Age is a more consistent or crucial factor in determining values and conduct than any other factor (including years in coaching, level of coaching, or religious convictions).  

• Cynicism. Younger coaches in each category are more likely to possess cynical attitudes about the necessity of cheating to succeed. Coaches 25-40 are four times more likely than coaches over 50 and twice as likely as coaches 41-49 to believe that “in today’s society, one has to lie or cheat, at least occasionally, to succeed.”

Coaches who believe cheating is necessary to success are substantially more likely to lie, cheat, or engage in dubious gamesmanship strategies than those who don’t.

Cynical coaches are:

• More than three times more likely to believe it’s proper to fight fire with fire in terms of illegal recruiting
• More than two times more likely to instruct their pitcher to throw at or dangerously close to an opposing batter who hit a home run the last time up
•  Two times more likely to instruct their pitcher to hit an opposing batter because one of their batters was hit in a previous inning
• Two times more likely to intentionally violate a league or sport rule

Percentage who said the following conduct is a proper part of the game (sorted by coach’s age):
(These numbers were computed just before the ABCA meeting and may vary slightly from the final numbers reported in the files linked at the top of this page.)

• Engage in any activity not prohibited by the rules.
  • 24/less: 33%
  • 25-40: 32%
  • 41-49: 29%
  • 50+: 28%
    
• Do whatever is legal (not prohibited) if it helps the team.
  • 24/less: 75%
  • 25-40: 59%
  • 41-49: 53%
  • 50+: 48%
    
• Instruct your pitcher to throw at or dangerously close to a hitter to brush him back.
  • 24/less: 66%
  • 25-40: 51%
  • 41-49: 40%
  • 50+: 28%
    
• Instruct your pitcher to throw at or dangerously close to a hitter who hit a home run the last time up.
  • 24/less: 10%
  • 25-40: 9%
  • 41-49: 6%
  • 50+: 5%
    
• Instruct your pitcher to hit a batter because one of your batters was hit in the previous inning.
  • 24/less: 35%
  • 25-40: 16%
  • 41-49: 10%
  • 50+: 6%
    
• Teach players to make a trapped ball look caught to fool umpires.
  • 24/less: 73%
  • 25-40: 53%
  • 41-49: 37%
  • 50+: 25%
    
• Instruct your groundskeeper to slope the foul line to keep bunts fair.
  • 24/less: 66%
  • 25-40: 60%
  • 41-49: 46%
  • 50+: 46%
    
• Provoke an umpire to throw you out of a game to fire up your team.
  • 24/less: 69%
  • 25-40: 45%
  • 41-49: 23%
  • 50+: 18%
    
• Make the visitor’s locker room too hot or cold to gain an advantage.    
  • 24/less: 18%
  • 25-40: 6%
  • 41-49: 3%
  • 50+: 1%
    
• Urge parents of a talented 9th grader to hold him back one year so he’ll be bigger for the varsity.
  • 24/less: 3%
  • 25-40: 3%
  • 41-49: 4%
  • 50+: 3%
    
• Fight fire with fire if other coaches are getting away with illegal recruiting.
  • 24/less: 8%
  • 25-40: 6%
  • 41-49: 4%
  • 50+: 3%

General ethics and conduct

• Would lie about my address to get my child into a better school.
  • 24/less: 15%
  • 25-40: 12%
  • 41-49: 4%
  • 50+: 3%

Percentage who said they engaged in the following conduct at least once in the past year:

• Intentionally violated a rule of the sport or league.
  • 24/less: 13%
  • 25-40: 12%
  • 41-49: 8%
  • 50+: 6%
    
• Was given too much change from a cashier and kept the money.
  • 24/less: 18%
  • 25-40: 15%
  • 41-49: 15%
  • 50+: 13%

• Illegally copied software.
  • 24/less: 18%
  • 25-40: 18%
  • 41-49: 13%
  • 50+: 11%
    
• Inflated an expense reimbursement claim.
  • 24/less: 0%
  • 25-40: 4%
  • 41-49: 6%
  • 50+: 4%
    
• Misrepresented or omitted facts on a tax return (results are considerably lower than general population).
  • 24/less: 0%
  • 25-40: 8%
  • 41-49: 6%
  • 50+: 8%
    
• Cheated on a test in your senior year of high school.
  • 24/less: 46%
  • 25-40: 45%
  • 41-49: 35%
  • 50+: 22%
    
• Stole something from a store in your senior year of high school.
  • 24/less: 8%
  • 25-40: 7%
  • 41-49: 9%
  • 50+: 6%
    
• Lied on at least one question on this survey.
  • 24/less: 10%
  • 25-40: 8%
  • 41-49: 9%
  • 50+: 10%