Good Sportsmanship
Jacob Timm
St. Stanislaus Middle School
Winona, MN
I believe sportsmanship and teamwork are two of the most important things to any sport. Sportsmanship to me means cheering on your teammates, being fair, and whether you win or lose, congratulating your opponent or opponents.
I play baseball, football, basketball and I also wrestle. I have learned that teamwork is especially important in baseball, football, and basketball because those sports require the entire team to work hard and do their best all the time in order for the team to be successful. Being successful doesn’t always mean winning. It doesn’t matter how many points you score or whether your team won or lost, as long as you did your best, and had good sportsmanship, you are a winner. After the game, we always line-up and give all of our opponents a high five.
In wrestling I have really learned the meaning of sportsmanship. You can wrestle at individual tournaments and at team tournaments. I like the team tournaments the best because when I go out and wrestle, the entire team is watching me and cheering me on. Before I wrestle, I have to shake the hand of my opponent. After we wrestle, we again shake hands, and then I go over and shake my opponent’s coach’s hand. Then I run back to my team and my whole team and coaches form a circle around me, pat me on the back, and tell me good job, whether I win or lose.
I have seen kids act unsportsmanlike. An example was when I was at a wrestling team tournament, one of the wrestlers thought that the referee made a bad call on him, but really he was just frustrated because he was losing the match. At one point in the match, when the referee stopped the action, the wrestler pushed his opponent when he was getting off of him in frustration. Not only did he have poor sportsmanship, but the referee awarded a point to his opponent for unsportsmanlike conduct. Another example of poor sportsmanship that I saw was after a basketball team lost a basketball game, one of the players started to cry. The coach told him that it doesn’t matter who wins or loses, and he said, “Yes it does.”
I have learned that it is always important to have good sportsmanship because it only brings you and your team down if you don’t. Your team will work better together if everyone has a good attitude. You will have more fun playing your sport if you always remember that no matter if you win or lose, as long as you did your best, had fun and had good sportsmanship, you and your team are winners!
