It may consist of cheering, chanting, or chatting. It could be screaming, shouting, or celebrating. It may even look like jubilation, joviality, or jollity. Sportsmanship plays an integral part in every school activity, particularly sporting events, so much so that the Eastern Kansas League held a Sportsmanship Summit on Nov. 1 for the first year at Southwest.

Previously, this conference to encourage sportsmanship within the league had been held intermittently over the years. But the opening of Southwest spurred league officials and activity directors to start the summits up again.

Rich Bechard, Activities Director for the Blue Valley District and Southwest, hopes that these summits will continue to foster an improving sense of sportsmanship within eastern Kansas schools. But part of the challenge that faces the EKL Sportsmanship Summits, it seemed,was defining what sportsmanship ought to be.

The Kansas High School Activities Association has done extensive reports on what the ideal behavior at school events, and it has published a 32 page manifesto (which can be viewed at http://www.kshsaa.org/Publications/Citizenship.pdf).

Among the requirements set in place for all EKL schools to abide by is a simple five point plan to proper sportsmanship, including: showing respect for the opponent, the rules of the contest, and the officials, maintaining self-control, and appreciating athletic skill regardless of affiliation.

“Sportsmanship is winning with class; losing in style; always being positive; and going the extra mile,” the Kansas State High School Activities Association said.

With that established, the district committed itself to promoting a healthy competitive spirit through the recent Sportsmanship Summit. In fact, the Blue Valley District thinks that sportsmanship can be a critical part in teaching students respect, responsibility and integrity.

“90% of what happens is outstanding and positive and really great,” Bechard said. “It’s that 10% that is negative that creates challenges.  Hopefully this summit can produce some ideas on how to replace that 10% negative behavior with more positive behavior where students are still having fun and being really loud for their team and school.”

The fact of the matter is, as KSHSAA sees it, that interscholastic activities are a privilege and the participants and spectators are expected to conduct themselves accordingly.The organization also states that fans must accept the fact that all high school participants make mistakes; they’re not perfect, and never will be.

All in all, the Sportsmanship Summit proved to be a success; many students, administrators and parents attended to promote sportsmanship within the Eastern Kansas League.

“I don’t think anyone wants to be known as being a poor sport and it does reflect poorly on a school when fans don’t behave in an appropriate.  Clearly this is a society issue as you see poor sportsmanship in all walks of life,” Bechard said. “High school sports has to be different, for us to meet our goals in what we want to accomplish with our athletic and activity programs all across this country good sportsmanship has to be an integral part of the process.”