Sportsmanship: A Valuable Trait to Teach Kids

 As I was reading the newspaper a few weeks ago, I came upon an article that took me back.

A 37-year-old assistant baseball coach in North Carolina was charged with assault when he punched the umpire. The umpire was 16. The head coach didn’t see exactly what had happened during the incident because he had already been ejected from the game.

The game was being played by 11- and 12-year-old boys.

I started playing tee-ball at 5 and moved into softball soon after. There were certain parents who were notorious for shouting at their children when they missed a ball or struck out. The kids would stare, bewildered, or hang their heads in shame.

I would always look for my Dad in the stands during these times. I could always count on him for a smile, a wink, a thumbs-up. I could hear him cheering for me when I came up to bat or while I was pitching. The only time I remember being yelled at on the field was when I was 12-years-old and it wasn’t by my Dad, but the coach of the opposing team.

I was pitching. The girl who was up to bat was a powerhouse of a hitter and, though she was my age, she stood a foot taller and was a foot wider through the shoulders. She could smack the ball easily into the far outfield if she could get a hold of the ball. There was a girl on second base and we had two outs. To avoid the runs the behemoth batter could bring in, my coach told me to walk her and that way we could have a forced out on third base.

After I pitched my second intentional ball, I heard the other team’s coach from their dugout.

“Ugh, they’re gonna walk her!” he yelled out.

I looked at my catcher and tried to ignore the verbal assault that began flowing from the right side of the field.

“Are you a chicken? Are you, you little baby? Are you scared of a little girl? Bock, bock, bock!”

It was one of the most humiliating and horrifying things I had ever experienced in all my 12 years. My parents would certainly have never treated me this way and I was in utter shock that an adult stranger was capable of calling names and mocking a child.

My coaches, and, of course, my Dad came to my defense rather quickly, but I will never forget the way that man, that coach, that father, turned on a little girl and intentionally tried to hurt her.

My husband MJ and I set ground rules from the start when we coached soccer last year. We held a meeting with our kid’s parents at the beginning of the first practice. We laid down a list of ground rules:

1. There will be no yelling at your child for doing something incorrectly or making a mistake during a game or practice.
2.  If you have a question or concern about how your child is doing, or feel they need more work in a certain area, please come to us—not them.
3. Relax, enjoy watching and cheering for your kids and let us coach.

We were lucky to have a great group of supportive parents and an even greater group of players. Those kids played their hearts out and the only shouts they heard were cheers as their parents and others screamed their names and clapped from their lawn chairs on the sidelines.

We may not have won many games that season, but after every game, we reminded them how they could be proud of themselves as long as they played their best. They got high-fives and left with proud parents, smiles, and self-esteem intact.