[117] 'Real Sportsmanship' Catalyst For Change In College Sports

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Sept. 25, 2010
EDITORIAL CONTACT: Gina Logue, 615-898-5081

‘REAL SPORTSMANSHIP’ CATALYST FOR CHANGE IN COLLEGE SPORTS
MTSU Professor’s Work Not Just Fun and Games for Sun Belt Conference

(MURFREESBORO) – Athletic directors and university presidents wince whenever cheap shots, melees and other bad behavior dominate media coverage of their intercollegiate sports teams. Now they have at hand a tool that can help to instill important values in their student-athletes and coaches at the conference level.
The Center for Sport Policy and Research at Middle Tennessee State University developed the Real Sportsmanship Platform to assess perceptions and behaviors of athletes and coaches regarding sportsmanship both inside and outside the games they play.
“What I really tried to do was use my own experience and education and the process I went through to try to create a system that would allow them to feel like they’re inside of a story, and the story is about them,” says Dr. Colby Jubenville, designer of the program, professor of sport management and director of the Center for Sport Policy Research at MTSU.
First, 3,476 student-athletes and 478 coaches of the Sun Belt Conference, which is committed to the program over a five-year period, took separate pre-tests to determine baseline measures of behavior. They were asked to grade the frequency with which they agreed with certain statements on a scale of one to five with one being “never” and five being “always.”
In one year of conference calls with coaches, athletic directors, athletes, league commissioners and others, Jubenville constructed the platform in conjunction with Birmingham, Ala.-based Learning through Sports. Last year’s platform took under 30 minutes to complete, but this year’s platform can be done in less than 20 minutes.
Some of the statements put to the student-athletes included “If I am hit in the face after the whistle blows, I must defend myself and my team by any means necessary;” “If I’m faced with a test I must pass to stay eligible, I will do whatever I have to do to pass;” and “I believe my sport participation experiences should be totally separate from all other university experiences that I have.”
The coaches were asked to respond to statements such as “It’s important for me to reference sportsmanship during team meetings or practices;” “If a fan yells at me, I have the right to yell back;” and “My players know that I am the only one that discusses calls with the official.”

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Jubenville, a former NCAA Division III athlete and former NAIA coach, observes, “How many times have we seen coaches go off on officials and then turn around and get mad at their players when they go off on the official?”
The coach plays the pivotal part as a role model for athletes and other coaches, especially since the coach’s duties and responsibilities continue to increase, says Jubenville.
The report on the initial year of Real Sportsmanship in the Sun Belt Conference provides analytical results of the athletes’ answers on the basis of institution, gender, sport, education level and grade level.
One of the study’s most interesting findings is that the student-athlete’s ability to understand and implement sportsmanship principles decreases as skill levels increase. Jubenville calls this the Sportsmanship Paradox. With freshmen displaying relatively high levels of sportsmanship awareness compared to fifth- and sixth-year student-athletes, Jubenville concludes that this emphasis on fair play should be a line item in every conference’s budget.
“Just like they pay for great coaches and great equipment and great transportation, I think they need to pay for sportsmanship,” says Jubenville.


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ATTENTION, MEDIA: For an interview with Dr. Colby Jubenville about the Real Sportsmanship Platform, contact Gina Logue in the MTSU Office of News and Public Affairs at 615-898-5081 or gklogue@mtsu.edu.


Founded in 1911, Middle Tennessee State University is a Tennessee Board of Regents institution located in Murfreesboro and is the state’s largest public undergraduate institution. MTSU now boasts one of the nation’s first master’s degree programs in horse science, and the Council of Graduate Schools in Washington, D.C., acclaims MTSU’s Master of Science in Professional Science degree—the only one in Tennessee—as a model program. This fall, MTSU unveiled three new doctoral degrees in the sciences.