MILTON, Mass. – Wentworth athletics administrators and
head coaches joined their colleagues from the Commonwealth Coast
Conference on Tuesday to listen to a sportsmanship
presentation, given by nationally renowned and highly regarded
sportsmanship speaker Chuck
Mitrano, on the campus of Curry College.
Mitrano addressed the conference’s directors of athletics,
associate/assistant directors of athletics, senior women’s
administrators, and sports information directors in the morning
session before being joined by head coaches from each of the 10
member institutions for a session in the afternoon.
“Your reputation is like a sandcastle,” said Mitrano,
who is the Commissioner of the Empire 8 Conference. “You spend
a lot of time building it up and then, just like that, the
sandcastle can get knocked over by a wave or grains of sand can
blow away with the win. All it takes is one incident for your
reputation – the sandcastle that you have built up – to
get destroyed.”
Named one of the 100 Most Influential Sports Educators in America
by the Institute for International Sport (joining the likes of Pat
Summitt, John Wooden, Dr. Myles Brand, and Joe Paterno),
Mitrano’s emphasized three phases of implementing
sportsmanship – education, policy, and enforcement.
“Athletics are the ‘front porch’ of any
institution,” said Mitrano. “As coaches and
administrators we are responsible for helping to uphold the
reputation of our respective institutions. All of our actions
– be it a coach who spends an entire game berating officials
or a student-athlete retaliating against an opponent – are a
reflection of our campus as a whole.”
Mitrano reminded the group that they are ultimately shaping the
leaders of tomorrow and need to incorporate such values as ethics
and leadership in everything they do – from how coaches
conduct themselves on the sidelines to how practices are run.
Quoting noted ethicist Michael Josephson and his
commentary “The
Disease of Low Expectations” Mitrano commented that many
of the problems in business, politics, and the economy today are
the result of the actions or inactions of those who have sacrificed
their own integrity for a short-term win.
“Never sacrifice your own integrity for a win,” said
Mitrano. “In the end, is the sacrifice really worth a couple
of extra wins?”
Closing out the presentation, Mitrano, the president of the
Division III Commissioners Association, asked the group to think
about what their legacy would be; would it be one where you were
viewed as a coach who won at all costs or would it be one where you
were a coach who was a positive influence on his or her
student-athletes, on and off the field/court.