Categories
Hazing News

How about good sportsmanship instead of hazing?

All–My friend Garry Williams manages the Town and Country team in Logansport, IN. Thought you might like a story that makes you feel good about youth sports!!

This story will appear in the Logansport (IN) newspaper.

TRUE CHAMPIONS

A remarkable thing happened Tuesday night at Royal Center’s Rea Park. Two baseball teams won a single game that ended in a score of 5-0.

The 9- and 10-year-old tourney championship was in the 6th and final inning. All the Dye Lumber boys had to do was hold on to a five run lead. But with the first pitch of the inning, the Dye Lumber coach realized he had broken a five-inning limit for his starting pitcher. The game was declared a forfeit. The Town & Country Embroidery team, five runs behind, had won.

But after the trophies were handed out – first place for Town & Country and runner-up for Dye Lumber – the players themselves took matters into their own hands. The Town & Country boys walked across the field and asked if they could trade trophies with the other team. They felt that the Dye Lumber boys, though they had technically lost, deserved the championship trophies.

As the proud parents of both teams looked on, the boys posed together for this photo. They think they’re displaying their trophies. What they really displayed, in the minds of those who witnessed the event, was true sportsmanship.

And isn’t that what youth sports is all about?

By Hank Nuwer

Journalist Hank Nuwer is the Alaska author of Hazing: Destroying Young Lives; Broken Pledges: The Deadly Rite of Hazing, High School Hazing, Wrongs of Passage and The Hazing Reader. He has written articles or columns on hazing for the Sunday Times of India, Toronto Globe & Mail, Harper's Magazine, Orlando Sentinel, The Chronicle of Higher Education and the New York Times Sunday Magazine. His new book is Hazing: Destroying Young Lives from Indiana University Press. He is married to Malgorzata Wroblewska Nuwer of Warsaw, Poland and Fairbanks, Alaska. Nuwer, former columnist for the Greenville (Ohio)Early Bird, finished a stint as managing editor of the Celina Daily Standard to accept a new position as managing editor of the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner in Alaska.
Nuwer was named the Ohio Society of Professional Journalists columnist of the year in 2021 for his “After Darke” column in the Early Bird. He also won third place for the column in 2022 from the Indiana chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. He and his wife Gosia, recently of Union City, Ind., have owned 20 acres in Alaska for many years. “The move is a sort-of coming home for us,” said Nuwer. As a journalist, he’s written about the Alaskan Iditarod sled-dog race and other Alaska topics. Read his musings in his blog at Real Alaska Daily--http://realalaskadaily.com.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.