Winning the Right Way: Building Character in Sports

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I have played sports my whole life and have been coaching for the past 15 years and I have seen pretty much all sports have to offer. As both a coach and a player, I have been part of championship teams and losing teams. From competitive sports to the developmental leagues, I have had a wide variety of experiences. I have been witness to the good, the bad and the ugly of sports and although the majority of my experiences have been positive, there have been many a moment that has left a bad taste in my mouth.

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Sports can play an integral role in the development of children. The influences of sports on development come primarily from playing and being involved in sports but watching sports can also have a big impact on that development. There are many positives that sports can have on our lives. The obvious benefits of sports are related to the physical health and well being of the people who play. It is a great way to get the daily exercise that we should all be getting. This is true for both children and adults. I also view sports as a way to teach and build good character. Teaching our kids values through sports helps to reinforce the messages that are being taught at school and usually at home.

Sports also play the important role of imparting character values, according to Sport and Development.org. Playing sports can help teach honesty, teamwork and fair play. Learning to follow rules and respecting teammates and opponents can also be useful. Experiencing the role of a graceful winner and loser teaches people about being humble, and competition in general can teach individuals about self-respect, confidence and managing stress. Taking on leading roles within your team can also teach leadership, according to the Palo Alto Medical Foundation.
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To me, this is the most important aspect of sports. In sports, there are winners and losers and to be perfectly honest, there is a tremendous amount that can be learned both through winning and losing. Athletes need to learn to cope with both sides of this equation. Winning should be done with grace, dignity and respect for the opponent. There should be a sense of pride in the accomplishment of winning bit at the same time there needs to be empathy towards the team that is experiencing loss. Athletes that lose must also do so gracefully and with dignity and respect. The reality is that there is going to be a loss in almost every case and it is how we step up and act in those moments that are a true testament to our character, even more so than winning sometimes.

Coaches play a key role in the development of athletes and I’m not just talking about making them better players. Teachers are responsible for teaching character education in school and a coaches role in character development is no different. It is extremely important that coaches understand that there is more to their job than just teaching kids to be better at sports and coaching a team to play together and win. Coaches need to ensure that they are always being cognizant of the character values they are instilling in their players. Players look to their coaches for mentorship and leadership and will often emulate the values and beliefs of their coach. It is important for the coach to recognize this and know that everything they say and do is being watched and athletes will internalize the attitudes and tones presented.

When I am coaching, the first time I meet with players we talk very little about the game or sports. The first discussion we have is about character and what it means to be part of a team. I outline the importance of how we represent ourselves at all times and the players walk away from that first meeting with a full understanding of the expectations. I need them to understand that good character is just as important as being good at the sport. If had to choose between a championship team of kids who don’t respect the game or a team of good character players who lose I would choose the later. To me, they are winners already because they demonstrate the qualities of fair play, sportsmanship and respect.

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I'm not suggesting that players and coaches should not strive to win and play as hard as they can. That is a key part of sports, the competition and playing to win. What I am saying is that winning should not come at the expense of good character in sports.

There are a lot of great coaches out there that get this and do an amazing job of developing good character players while at the same time developing high-level skills. There are lots of examples of teams that are at elite levels and winning while showing good character. This should be the norm. However, there are lots of coaches and therefore players who have forgotten the importance of sportsmanship somewhere along the way.

Sportsmanship is defined as:

• playing fair
• following the rules of the game
• respecting the judgment of referees and officials
• treating opponents with respect

Some people define good sportsmanship as the "golden rule" of sports — in other words, treating the people you play with and against as you'd like to be treated yourself. You demonstrate good sportsmanship when you show respect for yourself, your teammates, and your opponents, for the coaches on both sides, and for the referees, judges, and other officials.
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In the past couple years I have witnessed some pretty bad displays of sportsmanship while coaching. Two years ago when I took our school’s junior basketball team to play in a tournament, one of our games was against a team that was clearly better than us. Several of the players on the other team played basketball at a competitive level outside of school. The score got pretty out of hand in a hurry and my team was getting beat really badly. I was impressed with the way my players kept trying and never gave up.

Unfortunately, the other coach encouraged his team to run up the score as much as possible. It wasn’t enough for them to win and to beat us but they were trying to embarrass us. They were enjoying themselves so much that they were falling over laughing on the bench and they were taking unnecessary three-point attempts and cheering wildly when they went in. The worst part of this display of unsportsmanlike behaviour was that the coach was not only allowing it to happen, he was encouraging it. He was laughing just as much as his players and loving every minute of the trouncing they were putting on us. It was a sad display and one that caused me to have a very serious conversation with him about after the game. He could tell how upset I was about how they had behaved but his only comment was “we were just having fun”.

In sports, there are going to be occasions where teams are outmatched and the score can get out of hand. However, there is a difference between having a big score differential and “running-up” the score. The way we win is just as important as winning. It is becoming all too common for teams and coaches to lose sight of that when winning and forget about having empathy for the other team. There is a fine line when it comes to situations like this. I personally didn’t have an issue with losing or with the score. It was the behaviour of our opponents that was disheartening. Are we not teaching these kids to be humble and to win with grace?

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The debate around running up the score has been around for a long time. After that game where my students were beaten so badly, I started to take a closer look at these types of game situations and how often they happen. I truly wondered to myself why? Why is it that the score has to continue getting so out of hand. Why is there such an unwillingness to recognize that there is no need to continue to beat a team so badly that it becomes sad to watch? Why don’t coaches ensure that their players demonstrate sportsmanship over gamesmanship? The biggest question for me was how could coaches encourage this behaviour?

There are those who will argue that sports are meant to be competitive and that players should not be taught to let up because it teaches bad habits and they should always compete to their fullest. There is also the idea that players that are losing don’t want to be pitied and feel like the other team isn’t trying against them. This can be as bad or worse. Then there are those that feel that the team that is losing in these blowouts might lose self-esteem and feel demoralized from the experience. This could potentially have an effect on the player's joy of the game and desire to play.

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The issue is not limited to school level or youth sports. This dilemma is very prominent at the high school and college levels and even crops up in professional sports from time to time. In high school, there can often be huge gaps in talent level from one school to the next and it is not uncommon to see scores get well out of hand. College basketball and football are notorious for these types of games. Any given weekend you can tune into a game to see teams losing by unimaginable margins.

The following are some examples of games that got out of hand:

2013 Men’s College football - Oklahoma 77, Texas A&M 0
2005 Men’s College football - Texas 70, Colorado 3
2010 Women’s College Basketball - Georgia Tech 82, Tennessee St 11
2007 MLB Texas Rangers 30, Baltimore Orioles 3
2009 NFL New England Patriots 59, Tennessee Titans 0
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These are just a few examples of more notable games that turned into blowouts but there so many more throughout time. As I stated earlier, it can be even worse at the high school level.

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Does it have to be this way? There are many youth level sports leagues where there is a “mercy” rule. Basically, once a score gets to a certain spread the game will be ended or the clock will run without stops to make the game go faster. This limits the amount in which a team can win by. It doesn’t change the fact that the beating was so big but it ensures the score won’t get to a point where athletes are getting embarrassed and upset. It also forces the winning team to recognize that they have the game in hand and that no further points need to be scored by continuing. This measure is not something that is commonly used in competitive divisions and especially not at the collegiate or professional level.

At this point, it really becomes the coaches responsibility to make a choice in these situations. If sportsmanship and empathy are important then there are a few options available. Although there are limited options available for the coach there are still a couple options. The most obvious is to start resting the starters and play the second and third string players. This should lower the talent gap between the teams and should help with reducing the scoring a little. Other options might include not calling timeouts or doing anything that might prolong the game. The coaches most important role in this situation though is to ensure that the team wins with dignity and are humble in their victory. Beating a team by a huge score is bad enough without the winners further humiliating the losers with poor sportsmanship. Ultimately, this is an issue that we can’t change in sports. What we can change is how we educate our players and the character they bring to the games.

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Have you ever been to a sporting event where the game got so out of hand that it was embarrassing? Were you or even one of your children part of a game like this? How did it make you feel to watch or be part of? I’d love to hear about your experiences.

Authored by: @broncofan99

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