Sportsmanship And Sportsmanship Of A Team

I walked onto the court for warmups and the routine shots and drills performed seemed pointless. Our opponents did not have a single player that was closer than 3 inches to my height so I expected to have a successful game. We all believed that we would win the game, and most probably expected to dominate. We were hit by a rude awakening as our opponents torched the nets shooting the ball, and we uncharacteristically made mistake after mistake. By then end of the quarter, the scoreboard read 23 to 9 and we were not the happy leaders. Our coaches told us, “Stay positive, and play hard. We will be ok in this game if we play

Sport’s are an aspect of life that affect societies across the globe. Athletics affect everyone's life, whether that be playing the sport, watching games, or hearing about a sporting event. There is a big difference between playing an individual sport and players relying on their own athletic abilities versus a team sport when members of the team rely on their teammates to complete each individual's specific responsibility to reach the team's goal. Team sports bring people together in countless ways, and they teach many life skills for the athletes that participate in them. Some of these skills include communication, teamwork, discipline, work ethic, dedication, leadership, and numerous more that will help them in their personal and work

     Michigan State University's report, "Sportsmanship: Building Character or 'Characters'?" on the Youth Sportsman Institute webpage, explains the basic idea of how the role of children's participation in sports affects their sportsmanship. The report gives examples of how good sportsmen, and bad sportsmen are viewed by society. The Youth Sports Institute says, "participation is viewed as a double-edged sword that may have either negative or positive effects on the child"("Sportsmanship",1) and that "the critical factor in determining whether the youth sports experience has a positive or negative effect on children is the quality of adult leadership"("Sportsmanship, 3).

We got changed in the locker room, listening to music that would get our adrenaline pumping. The game started with a tip-off with us getting the ball and scoring on the first play, but so did the other team. The game was very close. We would score, they would score. No one ever got ahead by more than four points. At the end of the second quarter with ten seconds left, it was their ball and we were down by two. They did a nice play and a girl got a wide open three pointer. Then the buzzer went off and we all looked at our fuming coach and knew what was about to come at half time. You know that scene in the movie, “42” about Jackie Robinson, where the other teams coach is yelling at him saying rude things? And then there’s the heartbreakingly beautiful scene where Jackie goes into the dugout and breaks his bat and screams and cries. That’s what our halftime was like. The coach yelling and us wanting to scream and cry, but still we had determination to win this game. We came back out ready to play and immediately tied it back it up. The game kept going back and forth, until the fourth quarter with a minute left and us up by four. The other teams coach called a timeout and our coach gave us a speech about if we wanted to win, we needed teamwork. Teamwork just like Jackie Robinson and the Brooklyn Dodgers. We came back out and held the game at four points until the buzzer went

For starters, I believe that student athletes should be a leader to their peers and in their community through attitude and hustle. This seems like it would be normal for someone that is seen as the face of their school, but often times these two things can come low on some athletes list of priorities. In school, instead of being the typical “jock” personality, student athletes should be the ones that portray a positive and caring attitude towards their peers. On the field/court, student athletes should always give their all. Many like to give up if they aren’t playing well, or if they aren’t playing at all, but this only brings the overall morale of the team down tremendously. Whether it is making plays or supporting teammates, everyone on a team has a role no matter if they are on the field or on the bench. Every single player has a part in success and one negative attitude can be the one to overtake an entire team.

All of the publicity that is attained by success, and the possibility of this success, places a great deal of pressure and stress on these young single-sport athletes. This stress and pressure takes the fun out of some sports. Youth sports are becoming serious and based more on winning than on having a great time and learning good sportsmanship. Adu points out the winning mindset of athletes in this day and age when he says, “Teams will do anything to win the game. My coach told me to expect that going in and that is exactly how it was. . .I felt like everybody was out to get me” (Goodall, 2003). This

Being girls of the ages fourteen to eighteen we did not know how to react. We have never in our life went to school and heard all these headlines about how the program we worked so hard to build is not going to make it in our county. Knowing we had no support from anyone besides our coaches and families led us to constantly being down. We were continuously mocked of from higher ranked teams, even if we won a game. All that proceeded in our heads were that how can people think so small of a group of teenage girls. No one wanted to be last in our division anymore, but we didn't have faith in ourselves as a result of no one having confidence in us.

The first almost massive upset occurred between “the one-seed Georgetown Hoyas and the sixteen-seed Princeton Tigers” (Gregory and Wolff, “The Game That Saved March Madness”). Coming into the game, “Georgetown was a national championship favorite, who featured one of the best players in the country in Alonzo Mourning. Small schools such as Princeton had been clobbered for years by teams like Georgetown, which resulted in many fans and NCAA officials wondering if these small schools belonged in the tournament in the first place” (Gregory and Wolff, “The Game That Saved March Madness”). Princeton’s players gave the effort of their lives, as they battled and fought with heavyweight Georgetown up until the last shot. Despite the fact that “Bob Scrabis’ game winning shot was blocked by Mourning”, Princeton had proven to the critics that it was possible for an unthinkable upset of this magnitude to materialize. Fast forward twenty-four years, and a new small conference underdog, the Florida Gulf Coast Eagles, became the talk of the entire country after “they became the lowest seeded team to win two NCAA Tournament games and make it all the way to the Sweet 16” (O’Halloran, “Cinderella Story Florida Gulf Coast Has Its Shining Stars”). No one could have predicted that this unknown school that “had never even made it to the NCAA

In 2016, more than ever, the team was committed to and had one goal of winning. One of our biggest rivals was St. John’s College High School (SJCHS). My doubles partner and I played the last match of the WCAC championships against SJCHS. During the season, SJCHS was one of the hardest competitors we faced but walking onto the court on the final day of championships, my partner and I knew we would fight and win. After 45 minutes, I hit an ace and we won the match that put us in the lead to win the championships. October 30, 2016 was the single most exciting and overwhelming day for the team all season. Everyone’s hard work paid off.

It is the first round of the Basketball State playoffs, and with eight seconds left, the talented Northwest team is down by three. The star point guard speed dribbles up the court, the tension on and off the court is immense, the pressure is even greater. Everyone during and prior to this game, had witnessed a season full of promise, and the consensus conclusion for most recognized this team as the best team to have ever come out Northwest High School. This was our best and likely only chance for success. So as the point guard puts the ball up, time nearly stops, it has a chance, but in like in life, the game of basketball is unforgiving, he misses. As most made their pre-conceived predictions of the future, or lack thereof, a young sophomore and his Junior Varsity teammates, we were inspired by our elders walking off the court, and the doubters going home. Bonded together, and we believed we were destine for something historical, and mythological outside our small circle. Thus two years later the 2016 Northwest Varsity Basketball team, the discourse community, where I developed relationships with the people I still call my brothers. A community which has shaped my work ethic, and has given me the knowledge of the amount of effort and work it takes to be successful. All of which was in efforts for a goal not even pronounced among our teammates, to us the future was still a mystery, only realized to us a one

This study focused on the importance of leadership among the athletes themselves, their peer leaders. “The results showed that the majority of team task (65%), social (57%), and external (79%) leaders occupied a formal position on their team.” (Loughead, Hardy, & Eys, 2006, p. 142). These leadership functions have different behavioral characteristics provided to the team members. The task leader helps to focus the team on the goal at hand and helps with decision making within the team. This may be the player on the team who calls the plays, the team captain. The research indicated that it was important for team members to elect their captains and other leaders. The social leader brings cohesiveness and harmony to the team. He encourages and rallies the players to get together and get involved. The final leadership function, external leaders help promote the team in the community and help organize fund raising. In addition, leadership within the team, through peers and other group members was a factor in the overall success of the team. They help foster communication between the coaching staff and the athletes. In addition, “it was hypothesized the longer athletes were members of a team, the more likely they would be identified as a

As far as athletes on the field a great many lessons are often learned there and one of the biggest lessons is sportsmanship. For any sports played teamwork is often times essential for winning. It also allows for a person to become more confident in their own abilities allowing them to become more proud and not ashamed of what they can or cannot do. It allows players to build bonds among their teammates and while this maybe be one of the main creators of the “jocks hang out with jocks” stereotype it is only because athletes feel a connection to someone that is going through the same time of training and emotions that sports tend to create. Sportsmanship teaches a person the value of working together in groups and allows the player to learn how to adjust to situations that he or she may not agree with. The work ethic sportsmanship creates is also carried off the field as well into the school and more importantly the working environment, because we all know that in our lifetimes we are going to have to work with someone that we do not like or agree with. And having the ability to be able to work through a problem which sportsmanship can do allows for an easier job experience.

Theoretical practices of sportsmanship in sports provide adolescents with positive attitudes about fairness, honesty, and responsibility. Athletes learn to reflect these values of sportsmanship and apply it to their daily lives, once again providing positive psychosocial benefits to youth athletes. “From the perspective of sport psychology, the sphere of research that encompasses the key concepts of sportsmanship, ethics, and morality has been termed moral development in sport” (Goldstein & Iso-Ahola 2006, p. 19). Moral development is influenced by the sporting environment that the adolescent is exposed too. The adolescent’s psychological growth is dependent on “moral cognitions (thoughts of right and wrong),

inflicted on the youth. People of all ages should be allowed to fully embrace the

Having gone through both elementary and middle school, we have all run into peers who spent a lot of time and energy trying to act like the most popular athlete in any given time period. Kids often try to imitate controversial athletes to bring attention to themselves. Such behavior can bring popularity to a young person. A sad outcome of violence in adult sports is that youth sports end up mirroring adult sports. Young people are encouraged to be aggressive, and often those who are the stars of the team are those who know how to "stretch the rules". Often, young people who do play by the rules are relegated to the bench. As a result, youth athletic teams, even