True-Sport-Report

Although everyone has a responsibility
to ensure that sport plays a positive role
in society, adults working with or around
young athletes play the most central
role—whether they are coaches, teachers,
parents, or fans. We cannot control what
professional or college athletes do, and
when they set a bad example our children
need to have the experiences and supportive
environment necessary for them to
recognize that bad behavior and reject it.
Providing and pointing out positive
role models allow children “to be what
they see.”
6. Create a cultural shift to renew the
true spirit of sport.
Sport takes place in an environment that
has been severely tarnished by scandals
and cheats, and the question remains
regarding how this generation of sport
players will be remembered. Well-founded
concerns about sport center on the overemphasis
on winning, specialization, and
commercialization, as well as the under
emphasis on ethics. This signals the
critical need for a cultural shift in how
we experience and value sport.
As a nation, we must renew the true
spirit of athletic competition—that is,
sport that upholds the principles of fair
play, sportsmanship, integrity, and ethics.
By working together, leveraging existing
programs that promote true sport, and
identifying ways to build new pillars for
an atmosphere of good sport, we can
dramatically improve the promise of
sport in the United States, rebuilding it as
a positive force. The foundation of such a
movement should include programs that
advance fairness, excellence, inclusion,
and fun and that promote ideals that
enable us as individual citizens, clubs,
teams, schools, districts, communities,
cities, and states to work toward achieving
true sport at all levels.
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