By David Hoch

David Hoch, EdD, CMAA, is the Athletic Director at Loch Raven High School in Baltimore County, Md. He is past President of the Maryland State Athletic Directors’ Association and a frequent contributor to Athletic Management. He can be reached at: dhoch@bcps.org.

In recent weeks, we have been inundated with newspaper articles and newscasts scrutinizing the behavior of professional athletes. The headlines have documented the legal problems of Michael Vick, Adam “Pacman” Jones, Terry “Tank” Johnson, and other athletes behaving poorly on and off the field. Many columnists attribute the bad behavior of today's athletes to the hip-hop culture, poor choices of friends, and a general lack of moral fiber. While I’m not a trained sociologist, and qualifying these theories is beyond my ability, I am still very concerned about the examples on and off the court and field these professionals are setting for student-athletes and how we as athletic administrators can counteract that culture of negativity.

Even though some professional athletes proclaim that they don’t want to be role models, our student-athletes do watch and see everything these high profile personalities do, wear, and say. Last winter, for example, our head basketball coach and I had to sit down with one of our players and explain that some of the gestures he was using were a form of taunting. We told him we thought the gestures were extremely inappropriate and would not be tolerated. During our talk, the player explained that he thought what he was doing was okay because he had seen pro athletes make the same gestures and the behavior was just a form of self-expression.

The player’s explanation was troubling and became the focal point of a message we shared with the whole team. In the high school setting, sportsmanship is important and we cannot follow the poor examples demonstrated by hot dogging pro athletes. Taunting may be part of the one-upsmanship found in professional sports, but it has no place in high school athletics.

More than ever, we have to look to our coaches to be the positive role models for our student-athletes. They need to exhibit composure, respect, and sportsmanship. In addition, our coaches should use every opportunity to teach their athletes what our expectations for good sportsmanship are and why adhering to them is important. Coaches need to communicate to each player that they are ambassadors for our school and need to carry themselves with dignity and class.

Of course, this attitude starts at the top with athletic administrators. We are ultimately responsible for providing the parameters for our coaches who, in turn, relay them to our athletes. We should use our preseason staff meetings to clearly explain our expectations and even offer suggestions on how to communicate them to our athletes.

For follow-up, memos and e-mail distribution lists are good ways to reach your coaches in a quick and easy manner. If you’ve read a good article illustrating your sportsmanship philosophy, or even one that teaches an important lesson about how not to act, photocopy it and put a copy in each coach’s mailbox. Of course, many of your coaches may prefer getting their information from the newspaper’s Internet site and all you have to do is to point out when the article was posted and perhaps supply the link, which may make it easier for them.

The bottom line is that we want coaches who are:
• Positive
• Encouraging
• Enthusiastic
• Honest and ethical
• Hard working
• Respectful

By exhibiting these traits on a daily basis with our teams, our student-athletes will be getting the right message. Our coaches have no choice but to be good role models, and as athletic administrators, we have to educate and guide them on how to handle this big responsibility.

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