Suggestions for Teaching Sports-
Throughout the book we’ve punctuated our discussions of the principles of sportsmanship with questions about how you might go about teaching and promoting these principles in your coaching. In the end, as we have stressed, the application of these principles to your day-to-day coaching is something you will have to do for yourself. The application of principles requires good judgment,andyou’retheone who has to developandexercise thatjudgment. Nonetheless, we thought it might be helpful to provide some suggestions for how you might go about putting these principles into practice.
Throughout this book we think we have offered something that is largely missingfromourcontemporarysportculture:anarticulationoftheprinciples of sportsmanship that is grounded in anunderstandingof thenature of sport. Here, based on our experience as coaches, athletes, and fans—as “students of the game” with regard to at least a few sports—we will throw out some ideas for how an understanding of these principles might show up in the practice of coaching. Let’s say you agree that teaching young athletes to respect opponents is an essential part of your responsibilities as a coach. What, then, can you do when you walk onto the practice field or court, when you talk to players before or during or after a game, to fulfill that responsibility?
In chapter 7 we argue that one of the principles of sportsmanship is the respect between players and the coach. The coach must demand respect, and the players owe respect to the coach. But the coach who merely demands respect won’t get it. You have to earn it, deserve it, by virtue ...
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