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In Sport and Character: Reclaiming the Principles of Sportsmanship (Human Kinetics, 2009), Craig Clifford, PhD, and Randolph Feezell, PhD encourage those involved in sports to practice and teach respect—for opponents, coaches, officials, teammates, and the game. Sport and Character: Reclaiming the Principles of Sportsmanship is endorsed by the American Sport Education Program. Rooted in the philosophy of "Athletes first, winning second," ASEP has educated more than one million coaches, ...
Many coaches object to the call for sportsmanship because they see it as outmoded. Other successful coaches let their players trash-talk or vent their emotions, so why shouldn’t I? Why can’t coaches let players be themselves? The issue is not whether you, as a coach, choose to convey values; the issue is whether you choose to convey the values of sportsmanship and whether you make this teaching a conscious part of your coaching.
For this reason, it is important to understand that sportsmanship is not just a matter of acceptable behavior but of excellence of character—or, in the language of the classical tradition, sportsmanship is a virtue. When we speak of a return to a virtue-centered ethics, we have in mind the turn from ethics centered on principles and rules for right action and good conduct to ethics centered on the importance of good character. In fleshing out the virtue of sportsmanship, you’ll come to see ...
Coaches who take the moral education of young athletes seriously must teach them respect for the game. We may have played a game Friday night, but by virtue of playing that game, you participated in the game. And just as a team effort is more than the sum of the individual efforts of the players and coach, the game is more than a particular game played on a particular day, more than a set of rules that determine how you go about trying to win, and even more than the sum of all of the ...
If you are a coach, you have authority over your players--the more authority, the more responsibility. Just as players, by the very nature of competition, must respect the authority of officials, they must respect the authority of their coach. The authority of the coach to make decisions on behalf of the whole team is greater than that of any of the players, but the coach’s authority derives from the nature of a team effort.
Dr. Craig Davies is the director of nutrition and fitness for the Core Golf Academy at Orange County National in Orlando, Florida. He consults with the Canadian Junior National Golf Program, Netherlands National Golf Federation, Turkish National Golf Federation, and Trinidad and Tobago National Golf Association. Dr. Davies developed the golf exercise specialist and golf performance therapist certifications through Golf Performance Therapy, a company he cofounded, which is dedicated to ...
