Sportsmanship program progresses

Christine Carrillo

With sports comes trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, fairness,

caring and citizenship -- at least in the case of sports in the

school district.

Along with hours of practice, endless reviews of game tapes and

crafting of new plays, coaches in the Newport-Mesa Unified School

District must now emphasize sportsmanship, ethics and character

building in accordance with the Victory With Honor program.

The program “focuses on strengthening the moral fiber of the next

generation,” said Mike Murphy, director of alternative programs and

student services for the district. “We’ve seen lots of progress ...

and we hope for great things for this program.”

Coming to the end of its trial run, the program, only partially

implemented at the beginning of the 2002-03 school year, has reached

its final developmental stage -- certifying a training staff at each

school.

Newport-Mesa trustees agreed Tuesday to fully adopt the program

and move ahead with the final training stages.

While most of the coaches have been trained, the rest are

scheduled to finish by late May. The final series of training,

through the Josephson Institute of Ethics, will not exceed $20,000,

the board’s vote dictates.

Trying to emphasize that all high school sports are “all sport and

game and not life and death,” Tom Antal, Estancia High’s principal,

told the school board the Victory With Honor program has already

played a major role in keeping the peace without tampering with the

competition in high school sports.

“Victory with Honor is a work in progress. ... We’re trying to

implement the philosophy,” said David Peterson, assistant principal

at Newport Harbor High. “It’s another standard to live up to, and I

think it’s a very positive and achievable goal as far as bringing in

... all those things that should be part of an athletic program.”

The school board, which listened to positive and negative

critiques of the program, asked that each of the schools present

progress reports regarding the implementation of their respective

plans.

Although some school officials said they felt they could come up

with ways for the program to better suit their own site, the overall

review of Victory With Honor was one of success.

“I think one of the important things is finding out that we’re all

in this together and we all have the same goal,” said Dave Perkins,

Costa Mesa High’s boys’ athletic director, who even used the

program’s code of ethics to evaluate his coaching staff. “We’re all

in it for the kids.”