This is the second in a series of stories about the seven recipients of NCAA Sportsmanship Awards for 2009. National recipients announced last week were Anthony DiCarlo, a wrestling student-athlete at Anderson (South Carolina), and Aleksandra Maskiewicz, a fencing student-athlete at Brown.

When the Division III winners of the NCAA Sportsmanship Award were announced last week, some people may have been surprised to see an entire team among the recipients.

The Fitchburg State women’s lacrosse team, however, earned a spot among seven national finalists for two instances of sportsmanship during the 2009 season.

The first was when referees delayed the start of the Falcons’ home opener against Southern Maine after determining that the stick of the visiting team’s goalie was longer than regulation.

When officials refused to allow the goalie to compete with the non-regulation stick, Fitchburg coach Rick Terrio dispatched assistant coach Rich Murphy to his car for a saw, which the goalie used to cut the stick down to the correct size.

Southern Maine then went on to defeat Fitchburg, 17-13.

“To me, I didn’t think it was a big deal,” said Terrio, who noted that the goalie’s only alternative would have been to play with a regular field stick, which is about a third the size of the goalie stick. “You want to be a good sport and you don’t want the other team to play at a disadvantage. They ended up beating us fair and square.”

The Falcons faced another difficult situation later in the season against Thomas More. The circumstance again involved the opposing goalkeeper, who in this case had misplaced her stick earlier in the week. The Fitchburg team offered a backup netminder’s stick for the match and then registered a 16-2 victory.

Terrio believes the team did the right thing in both cases and hopes his players learned valuable lessons.

“It’s important that coaches encourage good sportsmanship with their players, and to encourage it, you have to show it yourself,” Terrio said. “I’m proud of my team and my school. I’m thrilled with this award and it’s a great accomplishment.”

Carthage swimmer also honored

At Carthage, the story involved a story of support for an opponent.

Isaac Rothenbaum was packing up along with teammates after a preliminary session during last year’s College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin meet when they noticed a lone competitor still in the pool.

A swimmer from Wheaton (Illinois) was in the midst of a time trial for the 100-yard breaststroke. The student-athlete had already competed in the preliminary round and, although that time was already in the books, he had opted to swim again to improve his chances of earning a berth in the national meet.

Rothenbaum and his Carthage cohorts spontaneously began cheering their would-be opponent on.

While he has been singled out as the one who spearheaded the effort to stop packing and begin encouraging the Wheaton swimmer, Rothenbaum said he didn’t do anything beyond what the rest of his teammates did.

“We all stood up,” he said. “We all cheered. I feel like I was named for something everyone did. People cheer at meets all the time. He was swimming and we weren’t, so it’s kind of like why wouldn’t we cheer? That’s what our team’s mentality was.”

The Wheaton swimmer did go on to post a qualifying time and competed at nationals.

Rothenbaum said being chosen as a divisional winner of the NCAA Sportsmanship Award was a humbling experience and stressed the importance of keeping competition in the right perspective.

“Swimming, and sports in general, should be for fun,” he said. “When you’re competing against someone, you’re in the same boat. You’re both striving for the same goal. You can cheer on your competitor without compromising yourself.”

Rothenbaum is a junior graphic design and computer science major at Carthage. He aspires to work in video game development.

He and the Fitchburg State team were among seven finalists for the national NCAA Sportsmanship Award. Other finalists included Blake Griffin, former men’s basketball player at Oklahoma; Aaron Ammons, a track and field athlete at Southern Mississippi; and Jamie Maloney, a swimming and diving student-athlete at Clarion.