A STUDENT SURVEYS STUDENTS ON SPORTSMANSHIP

Erin Jury, junior at Houghton Lake High School, attended the MHSAA Statewide Sportsmanship Summit in Lansing on September 24. Afterward, she conducted an informal survey of student-athletes at Houghton Lake and neighboring high schools to find ou t what kinds of fan behavior impact student-athletes positively or negatively. She made a point to talk to athletes from all varsity sports, and she asked the same three open-ended questions of all students.

Here’s what she found:

1.As an athlete, what examples can you give of comments parents or fans have made which hurt or upset you during a game?
•Parents who yell at the refs embarrass their children and the team.

•When fans badger or make smart comments to the refs it affects the student athletes. Fans need to understand what a hard job refs have and not criticize calls they may not understand or be in a position to judge.

•Parents of athletes who try to be the coach for their child only hurt their child. Parents need to come to games to offer support only, not advice on how to play.

•Parents who yell criticisms at students or the team when mistakes are made upset individuals and the team. Ex: A softball player felt embarrassed by striking out and was even more humiliated by a parent who yelled comments about her hitting ability and the team’s lack of skill.

•Parents of star athletes sometimes put a lot of pressure on their children to lead their teams and openly criticize them when teams aren’t as successful as the parent thinks they should be.

•A lot of fan problems occur during basketball games when fans criticize the refs and in sports like volleyball, wrestling, softball, and baseball where fans are close to the playing field and can be heard by athletes. Students who run track or cros s country, ski, golf, or play football and soccer don’t hear much from the crowd that can disrupt their concentration. Wrestlers feel that their spectators are very supportive because there aren’t as many problems with fans disputing calls by refs.

•Some athletes have bad attitudes and use trash talk and taunts to try to take the other team out of their game. Football players sometimes react to opponents who display cocky attitudes.

•Opposing team crowds are generally more rude to other teams, but some schools show better sportsmanship than others.

•During tournaments, fans are much more intense and rude to opposing team players and their fans.

•The majority of the most negative fan behavior comes from adults.

2.What one behavior shown by parents or fans during games would you like to see changed?

•Disrespectful, taunting cheers

•Excessive noise, booing, deliberate distractions when basketball players are at the free throw line

•Humiliating chanting when students commit fouls or foul out of basketball games

•Players and parents need to show more respect for officials

•Parents need to know what their position as a spectator means

•Recognition from fans when someone makes a good play, not just a negative reaction when individuals or the team makes mistakes

•Students who aren’t team superstars don’t get much positive recognition from coaches, fans, parents, and their teammates. Coaches and fans need to understand that students who sit the bench work just as hard at practice as the starters, and without t heir contribution, star players would not be as good. Fans and coaches shouldn’t make athletes who sit the bench feels as if they don’t exist or humiliate them by not cheering or supporting them at the same level as the star athletes

3.What positive actions on the part of the fans get you pumped up during a gam?

•Student Spirit Clubs

•Pep Band or Marching Band playing at game

•Positive encouragement from the fans in the form of loud cheering

•Signs, posters made by students or cheerleaders

•Fans dressed in school colors

•Pep assemblies that give equal recognition to all student athletes

•Student athletes should support each other by attending games and matches in all sports. This is especially true for individualized sports like wrestling and all girls’ athletics!

•Spectators include more than just parents of the team members

•Why do cheerleaders only cheer for boys sports? Female athletes should be just as important to their schools as male athletes, yet fight songs, pep assemblies, cheerleaders, etc. relate more to boys’ sports at many schools.