Thursday, March 1, 2012

Lessons Beyond Winning

This time of year always provides basketball fans with a great deal of excitement. For followers of college basketball, February offers a prelude to March Madness. Kind of like a preview for a great movie, the shortest month of the year has hours and hours of regular season games that can determine the seeding for conference tournaments which, in turn, may decide who goes on to the "Big Dance.”

For devotees of high school basketball, this may be the most exciting month of the year. The conference schedule comes to a close and district and state tournaments are off and running. The games are all the more exciting now because the stakes are higher than before; a loss can mean the end of a season that every team began with high hopes and expectations. Players hustle even more than ever, and the players on the losing teams try even harder than earlier in the year.

Because the games mean that much more in February, the imperative for good sportsmanship may be more important than ever. It is with this thought in mind that I listened to the attached podcast by sportswriter Frank DeFord (see end of this blog post.) In this piece, DeFord recounts a game between two Division III schools, host Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania and Washington College in Maryland. Nearing the end of a hard-fought conference game with the home team leading, Gettysburg senior captain Cory Weismann, who had played little over his four years because of injuries resulting from a stroke, was put back in the game. The visitors called a time out, much to the fans’ surprise. As soon as play resumed, a Washington player fouled Weisman, and at this point, everyone realized what was occurring. Weisman missed the first shot but sunk the second, and the fans erupted in applause. The coach and players of Washington College wanted to make sure that Weisman scored in the final home game of his college career.

It is because of all the bad news that stories like the one above are so refreshing. All too often in the desire to win, coaches violate rules and guidelines and players act out because of frustration. More and more, sports at all levels seem to offer a venue for parents, coaches, or players to forget the lessons of camaraderie and sportsmanship that sports are supposed to teach us.

In addition, from a young age, high school athletes hope to compete at the collegiate level and play pro ball, and parents often go to great lengths to try and help their children make this dream a reality. As their parents, we should encourage them to dream, but we should also be realistic. This chart from the NCAA shows the likelihood of high school student-athlete going on to participate in college or professionally:



We all need to bear in mind that for the vast majority of high school athletes, the moment their senior season ends, their competitive sports career will also end. Consequently, this may allow us to encourage them to enjoy their games even more. Of course we want them to win, but we need to recognize that their playing days are finite. We should cheer them on, we should console them when they lose, and we should let them know that life will go on regardless of the final score.

We should also help them remember that the lessons they learn on the court will stay with them forever, and that stories like the one from the Gettysburg-Washington College should be the norm rather than the exception. Every time we see any of our student athletes help an opposing player up from the floor, check on an opponent who seems to be injured, or make sure that the locker rooms and bleachers of the other team’s home gym are clean (this has happened on more than one occasion with our players), we should tell them that makes us just as proud as when they sink the winning shot of the game. As in the classroom and in the hallways, the courts and fields of play provide us with another avenue for helping young men and young women become people of integrity.