Don’t let spirit of athleticism be bullied off the field

My 13-year-old daughter plays midfield for a first-class soccer team. By first-class, I’m not talking win-loss record. I’m talking character.

These girls make good grades, sing in the school choir, act in the school plays. These are also the kind of girls who make cookies for their teachers when they’re having a bad week. At Christmas, they exchanged homemade gifts with each other, and included one non-soccer player who sits at their lunch table because they didn’t want her to feel left out.

I can’t imagine these girls calling anybody on or off the field names, especially of the profane variety, or using highly offensive language to tell an opponent to get off the ball. I certainly can’t imagine them intentionally pushing or elbowing an opponent so that she gets knocked to the ground.

This is why, when it happened to them the other night, they were beyond shocked.

“Why would somebody treat us like that?” my daughter asked, her eyes full of tears as she and her teammates exited the field.

That night marked the first time in more than a decade and a half of watching my kids play community sports that I wanted to jump the fence and have a few words with the opposing coach.

But our own coach that night, a first-time parent volunteer sitting in for the regular coach, and busy enough running substitutes without also tackling ethics on the field, gently pulled me aside.

“I hate to say this, but I think this is kind of the way it is. There’s not a whole lot we can do about it, and I hear it’s only going to get worse as they move up the ranks.”

Unfortunately, there is truth to at least part of what he said.

Never mind the rise of poor behavior on the sidelines – parents second-guessing and physically attacking coaches, fans throwing water bottles at pro baseball players. Turn the TV channel to most any pro football or basketball game, and you’ll see players fighting, taunting and intimidating others, players engaging in unnecessary roughness, players pandering to the crowd and the TV.

Yes, I suppose, this is “kind of the way it is.”

As for “there’s not a whole lot we can do about it” and “it’s only going to get worse as they move up the ranks” – have we down here in the trenches lost our moorings?

Are we parents so afraid of being labeled meddling, Puritanical, unhip to the nuances of competition, if we call for proper behavior in the sports arena?

Have we become like the worst of the worst of today’s athletes, caught up in the culture of the win, unmindful of who and what we represent?

Certainly, the other night, I acted within the confines of acceptable sideline behavior when I comforted my daughter, when I affirmed her feelings of anger and hurt. I reminded her that herein lies an example of how character always wins the day: Despite the opposing team’s continued attempts at intimidation, my daughter’s team stayed the course and won 6-2.

As for calling the other team on its behavior? Come on. This is sports, not church. You have to pay to play.

And yet, ethics don’t take a break just because somebody’s got on a uniform.

Throughout the country, athletic leaders are getting it. In Arizona, 50 of the country’s most influential sports leaderscame together a few years ago for the Pursuing Victory With Honor conference, to “encourage greater emphasis on the ethical and character-building aspects of athletic competition.”

A 16-point accord was drafted, calling coaches and athletes alike to the highest of ideals, with the understanding that “sports are a major social force that shapes the quality and character of the American culture.” This accord (www.charactercounts.org/sports/accord.htm) has been adopted by athletic organizations throughout the country.

In the meantime, we have the greatest opportunity, if not responsibility, right here on our own fields.

I never talked to the opposing coach that night. But I did risk being called a meddling Puritan. I talked with my daughter’s team manager, who apparently had already applauded his team for holding its own. “The best response is no response, other than good soccer,” he had told my daughter and her teammates.

He also agreed to go further, to ask our entire league of coaches to make sure our referees know to penalize all inappropriate language and behavior.

There’s a chance that everybody could lose here, if we don’t watch it.

Soccer fields will no longer be a place where true athleticism has the opportunity to shine. Rather, our fields and courts will be a place for the most hardened among us, for those who can withstand intimidation, cursing and violence.

As for my daughter, who has no grandiose fantasies about going to the Olympics or even winning a college scholarship, but who has simply loved the game of soccer and the opportunity to call herself an athlete since she was 5, I know what she will do.

She, and others like her, will quit.