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This gives a brief history of the Sportsmanship Award and why it is important.
Bancroft-Rosalie has won the award twice and Lyons-Decatur once. BRLD is still after out first award.
BOYS STATE BASKETBALL
Still room to improve, but sportsmanship award has
helped at state tournaments
BRENT C. WAGNER Lincoln Journal Star Mar 8, 2019
For 20 years now there has been a sportsmanship award at the
state basketball
tournament, and just before they hand out the state
championship trophy they also give
an award to the school in each class judged to have had the
best sportsmanship.
Does that mean sportsmanship is perfect now? It does not.
Is sportsmanship better than it was? Maybe the quickest way
to try and answer that
question is to think back to some of those days in the 1990s
when the Class A schools
played at Devaney Sports Center, and on occasion you’d see
and hear two things.
One, when the opponent was being introduced before the game
a student section would
try to disrespect its opponent by turning their backs, or
hold up newspapers in front of
their faces.
And two, student sections would chant a profane word at the
game officials when they
didn’t like a call.
Those two things don’t happen as much now, in part thanks to
the sportsmanship award,
and the positive culture the schools are trying to create.
There are also a lot of unknowns about the sportsmanship
award. Why are they doing it,
how does it work, and is it making a difference?
Many people agree that sportsmanship among most students has
improved over the past
20 years, while in some communities sportsmanship among the
adults may have gotten
worse.
Randy Cordes was a teacher and coach in York for many years.
In retirement he
volunteers as one of the sportsmanship evaluators, usually
for the Class B games. The
evaluators watch and listen closely to everything that
happens on the court and in the
crowd, and use a checklist for how teams can earn and lose
the points that determine the
sportsmanship champion.
“It’s improved, without a doubt,” said Cordes of overall
sportsmanship at state. “Has
everybody bought into it? Nope. But most schools have, and
you can tell the schools that
work at it, because they correct any misbehavior that
happens.”
Jack Tarr is the athletic director and a coach at Malcolm,
and has been an evaluator
every year, mostly in classes C and D.
“Absolutely, it’s made a huge difference,” Tarr said. “I
would say fans are even getting
better than what they used to be.”
In some of the early years the winner of the award may have
been the best of the worst
sports. Now the difference between first and second place
can be really close, and teams
that finish second would have won during many years.
And some schools are trying to hold themselves to a higher
standard. There was one
time when a school was determined to be the winner, but one
of the school leaders
hadn’t liked something the school had done and turned down
the award, so another
school got it instead.
The sportsmanship award is run by the Nebraska Coaches
Association, with support
from the Nebraska School Activities Association and the
Nebraska State Athletic
Administrators Association.
The award started in 2000 when sportsmanship at the state
tournament wasn’t very
good.
“It was getting to the point where it was out of control of
what school could outdo each
other in form of being insulting, being confrontational,
getting to that personal level of
attacking kids on the court or coaches or officials,” said
Darin Boysen, the executive
director of the Nebraska Coaches Association.
“I think at that point these guys as leaders across the
state said something has to
happen.”
Most of the student sections have gotten better, Cordes
said.
“They’ve eliminated some of the stuff that was obviously
just awful,” he said.
Over the years the award criteria has shifted from not just
penalizing schools for bad
sportsmanship, but also rewarding them for the good things
many schools are doing,
such as having pep bands, the students dressing in a theme,
and players helping an
opponent up when they fall.
And now the schools know what they’re evaluated on. The
short version of how you’re
going to do well is that if you focus on your school, and
not the opponent, you’re going
to score well.
What are the most common things that hurt schools?
“The chants against other teams, particularly if they get
personal,” Boysen said “And
that’s where we really draw the line. If you’re going to
continue to harp on a player. If
the player has an air ball and every time he touches the
ball they yell it. If anything gets
to the point of profanity, ethnic, gender, any of those
things, those are major
deductions.”
And while a lot of the scoring is based on the students,
players and coaches, a group of
repeat offenders in the parent section yelling at the
officials are really hurting their
school.
Schools take pride in trying to win the award, and at many
schools the sportsmanship
award is in the trophy case right by the championship
trophies.
The award is just one part of trying to improve
sportsmanship. There are sportsmanship
summits in the fall at four locations across the state for
students and school leaders. The
sportsmanship award has been added for state volleyball and
state soccer. Some
conferences also have sportsmanship awards.
About two days after the state tournament, all 48 schools
gets a report that shows what
their point total was for each day, comments from the
evaluators on what they did well
and what hurt them, and where they ranked in their class.
After one tournament a school board member asked an
administrator why they didn’t
win. On the report there was a description of a fan who had
caused the school to be
deducted points by his actions.
“They said, ‘Yep, I know who you’re talking about,’” Boysen
said. “And by the end of
that conversation the school said, 'You know what, we had
several opportunities to
correct this during the year and we didn’t.'”
The sportsmanship award also highlights good behavior. The
Elkhorn South girls coach
had the team pick up the trash on their bench after the
game, and that earned them some
points.
Before the Class B girls championship game last week,
students from Northwest and
Crete got together for a photo.
“That sets a tone that, ‘OK, there is a bigger picture
here,’ and people see that,” Boysen said.
