Just as young soccer players finish their customary end-of-game handshake, more than 30 parents and coaches clashed in a fight that ended in the arrest of three adults at a California soccer field. At a girl's lacrosse game in Ohio, one team’s coach flew into referee rage, screaming at both officials and the opposing team’s timekeeper – reducing her to tears. At the same time that two New Hampshire club basketball teams were slapping hands in an end-of-game show of good sportsmanship , fans spilled out of the stands and started a fist-swinging melee that injured several players.

And that’s just during the past several months of youth league play.

More and more the world of sports is showing its darker side. Most agree that people who compete should try their hardest to win. But when victory becomes the sole focus for coaches, fans, and players, it can be costly.   Recently priorities have changed for coaches, both professional and volunteer, with more stress being placed on the basic premise that coaching is a teaching profession.

Few people know this better than the attendees who assembled in Chapel Hill this April for the first sports awareness seminar of its kind on the East Coast: “Pursuing Victory with Honor: A Summit on Sportsmanship, Ethics and Character Building.” The seminar attracted more than 500 middle and high school coaches, athletic directors, school administrators, and municipal or community recreation professionals representing club and youth sports, as well as interscholastic and collegiate sports programs – turning away another 1,000 other coaches who wanted to attend the seminar.

Such strong interest in this topic speaks volumes about how hungry coaches are for information about +the need for sports to reflect the best – not worst – in all of us. Now UNC-TV addresses this issue by co-producing, along with the Josephson Institute of Ethics, a pioneering program that takes an in-depth look at the topics discussed in this thought-provoking seminar. Pursuing Victory With Honor presents open discussions with a spectrum of well-known sports administrators, coaches, journalists and athletes focusing on sportsmanship, ethics and character building in sports.

The program includes commentary with such prominent local figures as UNC Chancellor Dr. James Moeser and sporting greats such as the former Tar Heel basketball coach Dean Smith, and U.S. Rep. Tom Osborne, the former Nebraska football coach who won two national titles.

“Coaches and mentors of young people are the real key to change. Sports, played the right way, can inspire our young people and teach them lessons that will help them be successful and ethical in all aspects of their life. Coaches are first of all teachers. And that is a responsibility not to be taken lightly,” says UNC Chancellor James Moeser.

The program addresses "Keeping a Balance: Athletic, Academic and Character Development," "The Coach as a Teacher; Role Modeling; Teaching Leadership through Sports" and "Special Issues – Hazing, Eating Disorders, Alcohol and Binge Drinking, Substance Abuse, Performance-Enhancing Drugs." Panelistss include Kay Yow, women’s basketball coach at N.C. State University, UNC Athletic Director Dick Baddour and Carolina coaches Matt Doherty, men’s basketball; Anson Dorrance, women’s soccer; and Sylvia Hatchell, women’s basketball.

Pursuing Victory With Honor also features discussions about current issues with other top coaches and administrators from UNC and the collegiate and high school ranks. From hazing to character development, Michael Josephson, founder of the Josephson Institute of Ethics and its CHARACTER COUNTS! Sports program, UNC announcer Woody Durham , and ESPN college basketball analyst Jay Bilas, a former Duke University player, moderate discussions that ask realistic questions about the state of coaching in athletics today.

“The great challenge of Pursuing Victory With Honor is to be practical and realistic without using our ideals…not lose the notion that sports can be both built and demonstrated. That’s the real purpose of this,” says Josephson.

The seminar portrayed in the program is part of the Josephson Institute’s national "Pursuing Victory With Honor" campaign to help youth and collegiate sports programs implement the principles of the Arizona Sports Summit Accord, which was crafted nearly two years ago by nearly 50 influential leaders in sports to encourage more emphasis on the ethical and character-building aspects of athletic competition.

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