sp or t s Why respect your opponent? Teaching sportsmanship must be explicit, coaches find.
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ports idols perform touchdown dances, update Twitter feeds constantly, and are often caught behaving badly off the field. Young athletes connected with social media are engulfed by an athletics culture where civility, respect and general sportsmanship are hard to find.
Neither athletes nor coaches can ignore the prevailing tides. In this environment, how do coaches impress student-athletes with the value of fair conduct; respect for opponents, teammates and officials; winning and losing graciously? How do you make sure athletes practice the skills that are bound to help them succeed in life? “Respecting your opponent is an important part of the game,” Milton’s Director of Athletics Lamar Reddicks tells his basketball players. “It’s the only time you’re going to face someone who is going through
exactly what you’re going through.” If you respect your game, Lamar points out, then it only makes sense to respect the player with the skill to oppose you.
level,” says head football coach and program veteran Kevin MacDonald. “The expectation that a coach communicates sets up the team dynamic.”
Varsity softball coach Amy Hickey agrees: “When you compete, you’re expressing a lot of passion and emotion—some positive, some negative. Practicing good sportsmanship is a reminder that you’re all civil people. Great athletes, and great coaches, weave those elements together.”
After tryouts, and before practices begin, coaches explicitly go over team rules and expectations—some passed along from the athletic director, others they develop based on their own experiences. Many of these points deal in concrete terms with sportsmanship and how players are expected to represent the program and their School.
Milton coaches view their roles broadly. They’re not just developing plays and driving winning seasons; they’re working to make sure team experiences help shape students’ approaches to challenges of all kinds, over time. “When the coach is a mercenary and not an educator, when his sole priority is to win and not to teach, that’s a problem at this
“My players physically sign the list of expectations so that they feel ownership,” says Anne Sheridan Quigley, head coach of girls’ lacrosse. “The students know right from wrong, but it often helps them when we’re specific and provide examples.” In turn, the expectation of the coach is that he or she will hold the line. “Once you lose credibility with your players, it’s very difficult to gain it back,” says Lamar. “If you don’t address something right away, you’re enabling the behavior. Even when your players act out of frustration, you have to hold them accountable.” Kevin shares a story of one lacrosse game when coach Derek Stolp’s team realized after their victory that they had had an extra player on the field—a detail the official had missed. Derek called the opposing team’s coach and the referee to report the news. “A victory is tainted when you know it wasn’t a fair win,” says Kevin. “Derek called for the same reason you call a ball out when the official wasn’t close enough to see. It’s the right thing to do. You can’t tell your players to do the right thing if you don’t do it yourself.” “The team represents Milton off the field as well,” adds Britney Carr, assistant athletic director and head field hockey coach. Fall 2012 49