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PLAY LIKE A CHAMPION
(December 2004)

If you and I are playing tennis, and I don't try to win and you defeat me, I cheapen your victory. And by cheapening your victory, I've been a poor sport.

So trying to win is a goal of school sports. Trying in the best way to win, within the rules, with all our effort, and with grace regardless of the outcome.

The most satisfying victory in sports is defeating your best opponent on his or her best day. The least satisfying victory is against a much weaker opponent, or as a result of a glaring mistake, or a bad call, or worst of all, cheating. You want the best opponent on his or her best day. You feel the best when you beat the best, playing your best. I'm here to help you do that.

One of the great lessons of the academic classroom, and one of the great lessons of the athletic arena, is this: as you prepare, you will perform. How you study generally affects your grades. How you practice affects your performance, whether that is in band or basketball.

And one of the areas that needs thought, one of the areas that needs study, and one of the areas that needs practice in sports, is sportsmanship. I want to convey to you, I want to convince you, that sportsmanship is not corny, and it's not out of style in our “in-your-face” society. And it needs practice.

Sportsmanship is not dead, and it's not out of fashion. In fact, the natural instinct of people is toward sportsmanship. The natural tendency of people is toward fairness, courtesy, kindness and respect.

Once when my son was playing soccer – he was about eight years old at the time – he tumbled out of bounds and down a little hill. Luke returned to the field covered with burrs from head to toe. As he began to delicately remove the burrs, play continued, except that a player on the other team – the player marking him – stopped to assist Luke, continuing to help him until all the burrs were removed. And only then did the two players go back to the game.

Sportsmanship is not dead. It's the natural instinct of young people. Even before you could pronounce the word, even before you could define the concept as you've been trying to do today, you knew what sportsmanship was. If, in the middle of a card game, I were to change the rules of the game when you were six, seven or eight years old, you would shout, “Hey, that's not fair!” We must assure that as 16, 17 and 18 year olds, you will still feel the same way.

But sportsmanship is more than this, as the following example demonstrates.

A number of autumns ago, Wheaton Christian High School was playing Waubonsie Valley High School in boys soccer; and with one minute remaining, Waubonsie Valley scored to go ahead 3-2, and their crowd went wild.

The ball was put back in play, and as the clock ticked down, Wheaton Christian made its last offensive. The ball was moved to the senior captain, the highest scorer in the school's history, who got by a couple of defenders and close enough to the goal that he faked the keeper one way and then kicked the ball high into the net the other way, tying the score 3-3. Wheaton Christian's crowd went nuts.

However, the senior captain had noticed something. He had noticed that the clock at the end of the field behind the goal to which he had kicked had ticked down to zero before the ball had entered the net. So he walked over to the referee and asked, “Is the scoreboard clock official, or are you keeping the time here on the field?” The referee said the scoreboard clock was official, and the senior captain told the referee what had happened. And then he told his coaches what had happened: that the kick was late, that the goal shouldn't count, that the other team should win.

Which is exactly what happened that day.

Here's how the senior captain was quoted in the Chicago Tribune a few days later. “Doing the right thing is important. It lets you have peace. In my opinion, every time you're lucky enough to be given the opportunity to do something right, you shouldn't pass it up.”

Sportsmanship is not dead, and it's not out of style or out of fashion.

There is this notion that sportsmanship is only observing a list of don'ts. But sportsmanship is also observing a list of dos. It's seizing the opportunity to do something right.

Not only do good sports refrain from booing opponents and officials and from chanting, “Air ball, air ball” and “You, you, you” after fouls. Really good sports restrain others from doing those things.

Not only do good sports refuse to shout, “We're No. 1, we're No. 1” or sing that terrible song, “Na Na, Hey Hey, Goodbye.” Really good sports remind others that this is childish at best, and spiteful at worst.

Not only do good sports refuse to do sack dances and end zone prances. Really good sports return to help up the quarterback and hand the ball to the official after touchdowns. I am sick in my heart at the behavior of college and professional football players: college defenders who strut and point after they make a tackle, and professional players who prance and dance in the end zone after they score. The best behaved football players on any level in Michigan are those engaged in the high school game.

Why is sportsmanship so important? Because sportsmanship is the starting point, if not the essence, of citizenship. And because sportsmanship is what we're supposed to teach and learn in educational athletics more than anything else. More than fitness, skills and strategies, we're to teach and learn sportsmanship. More than discipline, sacrifice, hard work and teamwork, we're to teach and learn sportsmanship. That's our product. Educational athletics without sportsmanship is like General Motors without cars: there would be no reason for being.

In the book Discovery of Morals, which is not about sports at all, the author, who is a sociologist and not an athlete at all, writes this: “Sportsmanship is probably the clearest and most popular expression of morals. Sportsmanship is a thing of the spirit. It is timeless and endless; and we should strive to make it universal to our races, creeds and walks in life.”

Sportsmanship reveals more about us than anything else we do. Sportsmanship reveals more about our character than any athletic achievement, any victory, any trophy or medal.

Sportsmanship is more than a list of don'ts and dos. It's more than grace in defeat and victory. It's more than how we play the game and how we watch the game. It is how we live our lives.

Sportsmanship begins in our homes. We work on it in practice. It extends to games. It reaches up into the crowd and permeates the school halls and shopping malls, and it infects society for good or for bad. The quality of sportsmanship in our schools is related to the quality of citizenship in our society.

All across the state, the MHSAA is trying to help schools keep their grip on sportsmanship when, on all other levels of sports, sportsmanship seems to be declining. All across the state, the MHSAA is trying to help schools keep a hold of high standards when, on all other levels, standards seem to be slipping.

I'm certain you have heard the expression, “Get a grip.” Or, “Get a grip on yourself,” when someone is losing control of himself or herself. That's exactly what sportsmanship requires: getting a grip on oneself emotionally, and remembering what school sports is about. And what school sports is mostly about is sportsmanship.

What you're doing here today and what you're intending to accomplish in your schools in all sports throughout the entire school year will strengthen your program and will help the entire state keep a strong grip on sportsmanship. As you improve the standards of sportsmanship at your school, so will those standards be elevated in the schools you oppose in athletic participation and in your entire league or conference.

So let's practice like champions; let's play like champions; and let's act like champions, win or lose, in season or out.

Live with pure thoughts, kind words, good deeds, positive habits and uncompromising character, championship character; and you will be a champion in life, and you will be a champion for life. Make it your destiny to play like a champion, and lead others to do the same.

MHSAA Executive Director
John E. "Jack" Roberts