Ideas for How to Teach Team Sportsmanship

Sportsmanship is a life lesson often taught by both parents and coaches in youth through high school team sports and is essential to a healthy sport experience. Take the steps to introduce and reinforce sportsmanship techniques to your sports team to reduce bullying, increase positive attitudes and enhance the enjoyment of the sport.

  1. Lead by Example

    • If you want your athletes to implement good sportsmanship, you, as a coach or a parent, must do the same. Yelling at paid or volunteer officials for bad calls is displaying unsportsmanlike conduct and promotes a "do as I say and not as I do" attitude for the athletes, which may translate into rebellion and copy-cat behavior. Model the behavior that congratulates athletes on your team and the opposing team on a job well done, whether winning or losing.

    Set Behavioral Rules

    • Create a set of rules for behavior with your athletes. Get them involved to give them a feeling of responsibility for upholding and abiding by the set regulations. Do not tolerate unsportsmanlike conduct from your athletes and create a set of consequences for refusing to abide by the collective rules. Enforce the same consequences for every team member who break the rules, whether it's the star athlete or one having trouble in the sport.

    Play Fair

    • Following the legal team sport rules, athletes must play fair. As a coach, concentrate less on winning and more on teaching them to play to the best of their abilities in accordance with the rules of play. When an athlete focuses all his efforts on winning the game, he may do whatever it takes to succeed, and cheat, bully other kids or intimidate others into a less-than-optimal performance so that he can shine as the star player, instead of working on creating a superstar team.

    Give Examples

    • Many young athletes and those who have never been taught about good sportsmanship may not be aware of exactly how to implement it. Give the athletes examples of how to integrate character into sports. Encourage the team to clap and congratulate one another on calling a good play or when a team member who may be a bit less experienced in the game performs well above his ability. If you have a semi-pro team in the area, invite a local sports celebrity to talk to the kids for a few minutes about how good sportsmanship is used in professional sports and how it affects performance.