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Show Reprinted from Utah Activities Association Author Unknown I Dear Spectator: If someone were to ask you what represents rep-resents the greatest peril to the survival of high school sports, you might say specialization, spe-cialization, overemphasis, officials, coaches, coach-es, administrators. But you would be wrong. For the greatest peril to the continuation continua-tion of Inter -scholastic athletics Is none of those reasons. It is you, my friend, you, the frantic fan. Specialization and overemphasis can, and Is, being curbed, officials trained, coaches and administrators guided, but you, Mr. Fan, you answer to no one; no one, that Is, until a program has been ruined, students penalized, young images shattered, all because you didn't control yourself. Perhaps it's not all your fault, perhaps you have never been exposed to proper spectator decorum. At any rate, a few definitive guidelines may serve to protect the program and at the same time enable you to better enjoy whatever contest you are viewing. High school athletics were not developed devel-oped as a sounding board for your immaturity, imma-turity, not developed as a vehicle on which you may "let off steam," rid yourself of "frustrations," etc. This Is fine in professional pro-fessional sports, as you are paying a premium pre-mium price to vent your emotions on athletes ath-letes that are paid a premium salary to put up with your antics. However, your token payment to an interscholastic contest entitles you to one thing the privilege of watching the more talented students of two schools exhibit what they have learned in the athletic classroom. class-room. For the athletic field, court or diamond is merely an extension of the classroom, and if it were any different there would be little reason for interscholastic athletics to survive. You would not think of entering a match, history or English classroom, flask on hip, and berate, often curse and physically abuse the math, history or English teacher. Yet, all too frequently you think nothing of harassing players and coaches in their classroom, the athletic classroom. High school administrators have always al-ways given you the benefit of the doubt, Mr. Fan, sometimes because you were a player's play-er's parent, or an influential citizen. However, How-ever, you should be on notice that administrators admin-istrators can no longer tolerate your childish, child-ish, Immature behavior, whether you are a recent graduate, a parent or a resident of the community In which the school is located. lo-cated. If, indeed, you are sincerely interested In the continuation of interscholastic athletics, ath-letics, then keep a few basic points in mind. 1. There is no such thing as a "right" to participate in interscholastic athletics. Math, history, English, physical education and certain other subjects are mandated by the proper authorities, and each student has a "right" to be properly exposed to them. Not so with interscholastic athletics they are a "privilege" and the player or spectator who takes advantage of this "privilege" is expected to conduct himself him-self or herself in a way so that the "privilege" "privi-lege" Is not rescinded. 2. Your team does not belong to the community. It belongs to the school, and that school has voluntarily agreed to abide by a certain set of rules, so that all athletics ath-letics may compete under the same standards. stand-ards. If these rules offend any special interest groups or individuals to the point where they cannot conduct themselves in a rational manner, then, by all means, these persons should direct all their energies toward some other level of athletics, but not the high school level. 3. Accept the fact that all high school athletes make mistakes. They are not perfect, per-fect, and never will be. There is compensation, compen-sation, though, for these same mistakes make high school athletics exciting and unpredictable. un-predictable. 4. Remember that your coach Is also a teacher. He is a teacher first, and coach second, and any time you join the misguided mis-guided souls In trying to reverse this order, your program is in the first stages of collapse. Remember, no coach, player or administrator wants to see a program fail. In most cases, failure can be attributed to the unrelenting, merciless pressure of you, the fan, who played little or no part In the building of the program. Small wonder that the high school coaching field has the highest turnover of any coaching level. 5. Make an attempt to learn the rules of the game and then leave the officials alone. Unending time and effort is spent in the training of these officials so that a contest may proceed smoothly. Historically, the spectator who constantly criticizes game officials is ignorant of the rules under which the game is played. 6. FinaUy, keep in mind that you are a guest of the school, and that while winning win-ning is certainly an admirable goal, victory is hollow if it comes at the expense of morals, ethics and just plain common sense. A beloved president once said that the world would soon forget his words, but remember the actions of his soldiers. As the years pass, the score of a contest con-test becomes relatively unimportant, sometimes some-times forgotten . However, your conduct will remain Ingrained forever in the minds of those who were most affected. Will they be proud or ashamed? The choice is yours!! |