By Jim Catalano
Jim Catalano is an Associate Editor at Coaching Management.
Coaching Management, 9.5, August 2001, http://www.momentummedia.com/articles/cm/cm0905/sportsmanship.htm
High school athletic administrators have made a big push in recent years to improve sportsmanship among student-athletes, implementing everything from incentives and awards to ratings systems and suspensions. But when it comes to encouraging sportsmanship on and off the court, the person who has the biggest influence on a team’s actions is the coach.
Promoting good sportsmanship, however, is not always an easy task in today’s environment, given that sports news shows are rife with highlights featuring athletes showboating, trash-talking, and engaging in other unsportsmanlike acts. The influence this behavior has on younger basketball players is inarguable, and so many coaches must wage an ongoing battle to keep their student-athletes on the straight and narrow. Yet there are programs that are winning the fight. In this article, coaches who lead programs noted for sportsmanship discuss how they have cultivated exemplary behavior among their players.
Keeping Your Cool
Most basketball coaches would agree that sportsmanship is an integral part of the game. But, making it a mainstay on your court takes more than just paying it lip service. And top coaches have found that successfully promoting sportsmanship begins with assessing how they conduct themselves.
“Coaches should consider themselves teachers first, and that’s been one of my guiding philosophies,” says Chris Sullivan, Head Boys’ Coach at Athol (Mass.) High School, a winner of the 2001 Sportsmanship Award presented by the NBA, WNBA, and the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS). “Sportsmanship is so important to me that I work to be a role model in that area. I believe if the coach keeps his cool, works hard, and stays under control, then his team will do the same thing.”
An important part of modeling sportsmanlike behavior is maintaining composure on the sideline, especially during a heated game. While that’s not always easy, the potential consequences of doing otherwise make it worthwhile.
“I coach very aggressively, and there are times I disagree with the officials,” Sullivan says. “But I also know there’s a line there, and if I go over it, the players and fans will follow me over that line.”
Paul Adams, Head Boys’ Coach at Watertown (N.Y.) High School, agrees. “If you argue a call for 10 minutes, your kids will see that and start questioning calls as well, which makes everyone’s job a lot harder,” he says. “That old adage, ‘Do as I say, not as I do,’ doesn’t carry a lot of weight here. If a kid sees you doing something, he’s going to imitate it. So make your point with the ref, then walk away.”
This approach not only benefits your players, but can useful to you, too. “I try to keep my cool so the ref won’t be an influencing factor on the outcome of the game,” says Dennis Terry, Head Boys’ Coach at Longwood High School in Middle Island, N.Y., another winner of the 2001 NBA/WNBA/NFHS Sportsmanship Award. “If you start concentrating on the referee, you’re not concentrating on coaching, and more often than not, teams lose games as a result.”
Of course, maintaining composure doesn’t have to mean keeping silent. But it does require keeping a civil tongue when you do have something to say. “I talk all the time to the officials, but I do it in a respectful manner,” says Bill Hawk, Head Boys’ Coach at Enumclaw (Wash.) High School, who also garnered a 2001 NBA/WNBA/NFHS Sportsmanship Award. “I’ll say things as they go by to make sure they hear, but if I’m standing up, my body language isn’t trying to get the crowd excited. Officials appreciate that, and the kids see it as well. We’ve got some coaches in our league who are into histrionics, and people definitely notice the contrast between them and me.”
One technique that Terry uses to keep his poise on the sideline is deep breathing. “We go over a lot of mental training during practices, including breathing exercises,” he says. “You can take a couple of deep breaths and get fresh air into the system, which helps you think with a clear, calm head—more so than if you’re jumping all over the place.”
But coaches shouldn’t work to embody sportsmanship only on the sideline. Coaches must also model proper behavior at practice, in the locker room—everywhere, really. “Just like in the classroom, you have to be careful what you say and how you carry yourself,” Terry says, “and I make a conscious effort to do that all the time.”
That includes watching his language. “I don’t curse, no matter how heated the situation,” Terry says. “I feel you should be able to express yourself without cursing. If you have to stoop that low to express yourself, there’s something wrong with you.”
Talking It Up
While it’s important to model sportsmanlike behavior all the time, it’s not enough to simply expect your players to follow suit. Most coaches also advocate actively discussing the subject with your student-athletes, whether during a formal preseason meeting or in ongoing conversations throughout the year.
“My players know my feelings on the issue,” Terry says. “We talk about how the game is important because it’s a microcosm of life, and the way they carry themselves on the court starts off the court. For example, all of us—coaches and players alike—have to wear a coat and tie on game days. I tell them the first impression that they make is the lasting one, and they buy into that.”
Hawk has a similar philosophy at Enumclaw. “We emphasize complimenting each other, making contact with each other on a daily basis, slapping hands as they pass in the hall to promote good feelings about friendship,” he says. “If they can learn to relate well with each other, they’ll do it with the people they play against, because they’re already doing it each day in practice.”
Despite your best efforts to build sportsmanship, outside influences will draw players in another direction. Thus, Hawk also advises making an effort to discuss with your players what they see athletes do on television.
“We point out that those athletes live in a unreal world where their ability, money, and the people around them are so far distant from the normal person’s life,” he says. “We say, ‘You can’t really relate to that lifestyle, so if you copy that behavior, it looks really artificial.’
“When my players see pro athletes make outrageous statements, dress differently, or talk trash, they see that as something unacceptable to emulate,” Hawk continues. “Actually, we laugh about it.”
Another important tool Hawk relies on is a notebook full of inspirational stories and philosophies, such as John Wooden’s Pyramid of Success. “We want to make them think beyond dribbling the ball, so we work through that notebook just as much as we go over Xs and Os in practice,” he says. “I would hate to think that a season’s success depends on the win-loss record, because you’re ultimately going to end with a loss unless you’re state champion.
“So we tell our kids there are many other things that are important, such as improving communication and loyalty. We want to win, because it’s more fun, but sportsmanship is a matter of behavior on and off the court and being a person who people admire, appreciate, and want to be around as a friend.”
Setting Limits
Promoting sportsmanship can become challenging when athletes misinterpret sportsmanship as playing soft. So, it’s important to let your players know that playing to win and acting sportsmanlike are not mutually exclusive.
“Everyone knows that to be successful as a coach you’ve got to get your players to play as hard as they can and as intensely as possible,” says Sullivan. “You want confidence, but you don’t want conceit. You want your kids to play hard and be intense, but you have to let them know there’s a line they shouldn’t cross with their behavior.”
And to draw that line, coaches must set specific rules. “I tell my players that if there’s an argument to be made during a game, I will be the one making it,” Adams says. “A ref will take a little more from me than he will from a student-athlete—if he gets shown up by a student, he’s more likely to call a technical foul, which hurts the team. I tell them that a ref isn’t there to discuss why something wasn’t or was a foul—he saw it, he called it, and he won’t change his mind.”
Another thing that coaches must address is their players’ means of hyping themselves up, whether it’s trash-talking, arrogant antics, or cursing. “Trash-talking is a tough area for coaches,” Sullivan says. “Your players are always looking for an edge on the court, and you can’t always hear them doing it. I don’t mind them chest bumping each other while they’re being intense, but I don’t want them showing up the other team. So I don’t let my kids do a dance after making a basket.”
“I also don’t let my kids swear in practice,” Sullivan says. “If they do, I call them on it, and if they don’t stop, they leave.”
For Terry, rules on language also extend beyond the court. “I don’t tolerate any cursing during practices, games, or in the classroom,” he says, “and they cannot use the ‘N’ word with each other. They can try to argue it’s in good taste, but I tell them no, it’s not.
“It’s the same with the music they listen to,” he continues. “If they’re playing something with inappropriate language in the locker room or on the bus, I tell them to turn it off. I also go through our pregame warm-up music to see if it’s clean before we’ll use it. I may be a throwback to the past, but that’s the way I do things, and it works for me.”
To institute positive behavior among your players, you sometimes will have to discipline players for unsportsmanlike actions. And in most cases, the most powerful weapon you have in your arsenal is playing time. “The bench is an interesting tool,” Sullivan says. “Once you tell a kid he’s going to sit on the bench, he changes his behavior immediately.
“I can’t say that I take a kid out of the game every time he gets a technical,” he continues. “But so many times I’ve seen a technical foul sway a game, and generally if a kid can’t behave on the court, you’ve got to take him out. If you let him do those things and stay in the game, you’re reinforcing that type of behavior. Hanging on the rim is one thing, but if he throws the ball at an official, he’s got to come out.”
Terry agrees. “In the playoffs this year, my best player picked up his third foul, then he threw the ball, so I took him out,” he says. “He was sulking and pouting as he took a seat. I didn’t say anything to him, but he didn’t go back in the rest of the game. The game was still to be decided, but I didn’t care. The other kids knew I meant business so they stepped up.
“If I were to leave that kid in, he’d think, ‘I can do this anytime I want because the coaches will still play me,’” continues Terry. “Well, you don’t have to play him. Instead, tell him, ‘If you want to play, these are some of the things you have to do.’”
And once a staff has established that sportsmanlike behavior is expected and enforced, that attitude can build on itself. “There are expectations that go with our program, and they’re passed down from class to class,” Hawk says. “That’s important, because the older athletes probably filter those behaviors down to the younger players better than our coaching staff can.”
Recognizing Sportsmanship
Finally, while the responsibility to encourage sportsmanship definitely falls upon your shoulders as a coach, you should realize that you aren’t alone in this effort. Indeed, many schools, leagues, and state associations provide guidelines, offer support programs, and present sportsmanship awards. And coaches add that these programs can serve as extra incentive for some teams and players.
“Our league has put into place a rating system, where the coaches rate each others’ teams and the officials rate the coaches and players,” Adams says. “Since then, it really has made everyone aware that they are being evaluated on a daily basis. It has improved the conduct of not only players and coaches, but also spectators. Just having an evaluation program in place keeps you aware that if you act like a jerk, you’re going to be rated like one.”
On the other side of the country, the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association has implemented a “Just Play Fair” program, supplying banners with the slogan to each school. “After every game, the state association selects one representative from each team to receive a medal—it could be a player or a cheerleader,” Hawk explains. “And our school has a ballot box where people can put in the name of someone deserving recognition for a sportsmanlike action during a game. At the end of the season, those ballots are compiled and the athletic director gives out an award.”
“Before we present our sportsmanship award,” Sullivan says, “we give a speech about what sportsmanship is and why this person is getting it. It doesn’t have to be because he didn’t get technical fouls; he could be a senior who didn’t get a lot of playing time but still contributed to the team in a positive way. Sportsmanship can be a lot of things.”
“Those awards mean a lot to some kids—because it’s an award of character,” Sullivan continues, “and sometimes it’s harder to develop character than a crossover dribble. So I’ve always been proud of those awards.”
“In fact, one of the highlights of my career was in 1987,” Sullivan says. “We not only won the district championship, but we found out the next morning we won the sportsmanship award as well. So, not only were our kids able to play at a high level, but somebody out there thought the behavior of our kids was exemplary, too—and that’s a supreme compliment.
“[But to reach that point, you must] develop your rules and foundation, believe in them and stick with them,” Sullivan concludes. “Very few of these kids are going to the NBA, and if basketball can teach them how to behave in intense situations, that’s going to be a positive tool for the rest of their lives.”