National Collegiate Athletic Association
NCAA News Archive - 2007
« back to 2007 | Back to NCAA News Archive Index
Double-A Zone
The NCAA News
|
The NCAA News
The “On The Road” feature from the Double-A Zone offers readers a chance to hear some of the conversations happening about intercollegiate athletics across the country. Last month, NCAA blogger Josh Centor attended the National Consortium for Academics and Sports in Orlando and posted at www.DoubleAZone.com the following about a session at the conference:
I arrived at the National Consortium for Academics and Sports at the tail end of lunch, registered for the conference and made it just in time to hear the eloquent Dan Doyle address the room. A basketball student-athlete during his undergraduate days at Bates, Dan is also a former college coach and the founder and executive director of the Institute for International Sport.
Dan spent much of his time discussing the importance of sportsmanship and shared a personal anecdote from his coaching days that I found quite poignant. While coaching in a basketball tournament in the Czech Republic, Dan led his team (the only American team in the field) all the way to the final game. In the championship, the Americans met the hometown Czech team in what was billed in the media as “the most important game in the country’s history.”
The game was tied with less than a minute to play, and one of Dan’s players stole the ball from his opponent. The Czech player turned around to sprint after Dan’s player and knocked the ball out of bounds to stop the easy breakaway bucket. The referee didn’t see who knocked the ball out of bounds and instead of guessing, asked the hometown player who was the last to touch the ball.
Dan was about to go nuts, dumbfounded that a referee would base a decision on the answer a player would give. Surely, Dan thought, the player would do whatever he could to get the ball for his team in that pivotal moment.
Before Dan could bust through his suit, the Czech player looked at the referee and said: “It was off me.” The Americans got the ball, scored the next time down the floor and won the game. The hometown player was booed off the court.
Years later, Dan shares that story as the epitome of sportsmanship, a story that helped shape both himself and his players for years to come. The moral of Dan’s story is that it isn’t always about winning, but it most certainly is always about integrity.
I arrived at the National Consortium for Academics and Sports at the tail end of lunch, registered for the conference and made it just in time to hear the eloquent Dan Doyle address the room. A basketball student-athlete during his undergraduate days at Bates, Dan is also a former college coach and the founder and executive director of the Institute for International Sport.
Dan spent much of his time discussing the importance of sportsmanship and shared a personal anecdote from his coaching days that I found quite poignant. While coaching in a basketball tournament in the Czech Republic, Dan led his team (the only American team in the field) all the way to the final game. In the championship, the Americans met the hometown Czech team in what was billed in the media as “the most important game in the country’s history.”
The game was tied with less than a minute to play, and one of Dan’s players stole the ball from his opponent. The Czech player turned around to sprint after Dan’s player and knocked the ball out of bounds to stop the easy breakaway bucket. The referee didn’t see who knocked the ball out of bounds and instead of guessing, asked the hometown player who was the last to touch the ball.
Dan was about to go nuts, dumbfounded that a referee would base a decision on the answer a player would give. Surely, Dan thought, the player would do whatever he could to get the ball for his team in that pivotal moment.
Before Dan could bust through his suit, the Czech player looked at the referee and said: “It was off me.” The Americans got the ball, scored the next time down the floor and won the game. The hometown player was booed off the court.
Years later, Dan shares that story as the epitome of sportsmanship, a story that helped shape both himself and his players for years to come. The moral of Dan’s story is that it isn’t always about winning, but it most certainly is always about integrity.
© 2010 The National Collegiate Athletic Association
Terms and Conditions | Privacy Policy