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_ BASKETBALL ETHICS - FOR COACHES (Continued)

6.

7%

8.

(Con't) = Conduct at basketball games, as well as at other athletic
activities, actually is the school's course in sportsmanship.
Instill in your players that in a competitive sport like basketball
it is necessary for a boy or young man to frequently mobilize during
the course of a game all the skill, intelligence and courage that

he possesses; to do this when opposed by competent opponents endowed

with similar atetete and purpose; to do this with a spirit of gen-
uine svottsmanship that will not permit him to stoop to that which

is base and mean in order to secure some advantage over his oppo-
nent.

Quite a few natural rival basketball games among various school and
university teams are not scheduled because the athletic authorities
feel that the conduct of partisan spectators would constitute such
a nuisance, and possibly such @ disturbance, that such games are
not arranged.

9. Emphasize to your players that when any of them descend to unsports-

manlike conduct or action during the course of a basketball game
that they injure hundreds of other persons other than themselves.
Each player is a representative of his institution. If he violates
the principles of good sportsmanhip he brings disgrace upon the
institution and the entire student body.

10.Basketball is a sport that was originated in an educational

institution. Ever since its humble beginning the game has been
administered principally by basketball authroities associated with
educational institutions. The popularity of the game has become so
widespread that it now embraces numerous types of leagues. The
leaders of this latter group look to the school and college division
for the sportsmanship traditions of the game. Let us resolve that
we shall set a good example by regarding it as a duty to teach and
encourage good sportsmanship among our players and the other
members of the student body, but what is equally and perhaps more
important let us regard it as an obligation to practise the ideal
principles of good sportsmanship ourselves.

John J. Gallagher, Chairman,
Coaching ithics Committee,
National Association of
Basketball Coaches.

Coach of Basketball,
Niagara University, New York.