Like our society, sportsmanship has really changed over the last 20 years. Today, high school athletes have many different factors that affect the way they look at treating opponents, officials, and team members. These new variables have led athletes down a dangerous path toward negativity and unconstructiveness. Not only does this develop a sense of pessimism toward athletics, but overall bad feelings about todays younger athletes.

Advanced technology was helped shaped the way athletes treat each other. The Internet has played a large role in how students communicate. Now, chat rooms and websites offer high school students a chance to interact with one another. When used appropriately, these can be very productive in helping students develop relationships. Often, this is not a popular approach in using updated technology. Instead, many high school athletes tend to visit websites that allow negative information to be posted by members of the site. Usually, these sites do not require members to use their real names. So, athletes have a free rein to banter back and forth with absolutely no accountability for their words. Frequently, this practice has resulted in verbal or physical altercations on and off the playing field.

Parenting attitudes and actions have helped instigate increased bad behavior of high school athletes. Being a poor role model is one way parents have assisted in the influx of negative sportsmanship. For example, during a 2004 high school basketball game in Pennsylvania where a parent body slammed a referee for ejecting his wife from the game for using obscenities. These kinds of incidents have helped high school athletes view violence as an acceptable reaction to unfavorable outcomes. Behavior like this has been highly publicized in the media, causing many organizations to become advocates for better parent behavior. In fact, the International Institute of Sports for the last 16 years has promoted a National Sportsmanship Day. Many famous athletes have jumped on board like Lance Armstrong, Chris Spielman, and Jennie Finch.

Practicing a team concept is another element of sportsmanship that has deteriorated in high school athletics. Todays players seem to have a very selfish outlook on athletic involvement. This type of attitude has trickled down from professional players through the college ranks. Now, todays best players often find themselves on the worst teams because their attitude is not conducive with creating a winning environment. This trend provides evidence that often players put their individual wants against vital team needs. In previous athletic environments this type of attitude was not accepted in sports.

In conclusion, todays athletes must fight off many distractions to practice proper sportsmanship. Athletes may even face peer pressure from teammates not to be a good sport during and after competition. To help remediate this increasing problem, coaches must provide proper instruction on the importance of good sportsmanship. Also, they must send a clear message that bad sportsmanship will not be tolerated within their athletic problem. By using this deterrent, coaches can hedge off embarrassing behavior of athletes in practice and game situations.

Coach Gerald Kreber played baseball at Briar Cliff College and Graceland University from 1995-1999. After playing, he served as an assistant baseball coach at Omaha Central High School from 2001-2006. In 2005, Kreber was hired as an Associate Scout for the Cleveland Indians Baseball Club. Mr. Kreber has been published in the Baseball Coaches Associations From the Dugout, American Baseball Coaches Coaching Digest, College Baseball Newspaper (CBN), and Tom Houses National Pitching Association (NPA). Moreover, in the winter of 2007, Krebers work will be published in Tom House new pitching book. He has also served as a pitching moderator on Steve Elliss Complete Pitcher website, and provided baseball instructional material to many other Internet websites. In 2005, Mr. Kreber created his own website http://www.baseballideas.blogspot.com His website offers free baseball instruction, research, and training tips to coaches looking for different ways to maximize player development.

How Did Halloween Begin?
It is believed that Halloween originated from a Celtic holiday known as Samhain, which was celebrated in Ireland and Scotland at harvest time for well over a thousand years. Samhain was the time of year (October 31st) when harvesting was completed and animals were brought from summer pastures to shelter for the winter months. At Samhain a large festival was celebrated, and fruits, vegetables, grain, and animals, were burned as gifts to the gods i...

What Happens On Easter Sunday Today?
Christians gather together on Easter Sunday for a Sunrise Service. This service takes place on a hill side so everyone can see the sun rise.Some Christians take part in an Easter vigil, lighting a new fire outside the church early on Sunday morning. The Paschal candle, decorated with studs to celebrate Christs wounds, may be lit from the fire and carried into the church where it is used to light the candles of the worshippers. The Easter Eucharis...

How To Heal Foot Ulcer For People With Diabetes
For people with diabetes, ulcer growing on feet can be common. It is important to heal it soonest possible before it gets worse. Healing needs good foot care and one needs to treat it with antibiotic. Also, one needs to remove the dead tissue that is growing on the feet. For people with foot ulcer, one should try not to walk too much to let the ulcer heal properly. One should also keep the feet clean to prevent more bacteria to infest the wounds,...

Halloween - Trick Or Treat?
Where did Halloween come from? Halloween originated from an ancient Celtic harvest festival, in Ireland and ancient Britain, when the spirits of the dead were thought to revisit their homes in the forms of ghosts, goblin, demon and witches.In the 9th century, the Catholic church observed November 1st as "All Saints Day" on honor of all the saints in heaven and the secular version is celebrated on October 31st became known as "All Hallow's Eve."Ho...

Second Mortgage Home Equity Loan - More than Words
Words can be fun. English words are particularly interesting as they are born from a variety of sources. Although it is a Germanic language, about 50 percent of English is based on Greek and Latin. Have you ever thought about the origins of certain words? Take the word "phony," for example. British crooks once used different secret code words. On of those was "fawney," which alluded to a gift ring. The thieves would sell these rings, claiming tha...