Members present: Dan Ridgeway, Neal Hook, Tracy Bottoms, Laura Ort, Jon Grice, and Bob Baker.
Lou Mazzocco attended representing the MSHSAA staff.
Lou introduced himself, welcomed the group, and thanked the members for their service. All members introduced themselves.
Lou asked the group to review and approve the minutes from the 2017 meeting. Motion Baker, Ort second, to approve the minutes of the 2017 Sportsmanship Advisory Committee meeting that was held on November 7, 2017. Motion passed 6-0.
Lou continued on with review of Board Action to 2017 Committee Recommendations.
Lou talked about the Sportsmanship Summit in the spring and the feedback from the students and administrators. Lou brought up the handout that had the topics that the students wanted discussed in the future at the summit.
Lou went on to talk about the 2017-18 Essay Contests. There was an issue last year with the prize summary, and there were a lot more participants than usual. Lou talked about the prize summary for the participants this year. Lou opened the floor for discussion to have the essay contest available for all middle schools including affiliates. No action taken.
New Business was as follows:
Grice talked about poor participation for the essay contest in the Kansas City area. Grice said he contacted everyone possible and talked about the prizes being given and he heard nothing from them. Baker said that he just emailed the information out and got a lot of participation. Lou said that he believes it’s just the school and it depends on if they are interested. Lou opened the floor asking if the essays are what the kids want to do. Ridgeway talked about having multi-media or PSA as another option with the essay contest. Lou talked about surveying the schools to gage interest for adding a category for a multi-media presentation submission. Tabled for further discussion.
Grice went on to the regional sportsmanship summits new business. He talked the topics that will be discussed; fan behavior, difference between school spirit and sportsmanship. Lou talked about helping facilitate at these summits, but gathering more schools in that area for those summits. The committee discussed the topic further. Lou talked about how these regional summits could be a certified MSHSAA event. Hook talked about bringing other athletic directors to these regional summits so they can get some ideas and see if they would like to run their own conference summit. Grice talked about having the Why We Play initiative involved in these summits. The committee discussed the topic further. Baker talked about how difficult it is to ask the kids to take another day out of school along with missing class for sporting events. Lou said that he would put together some ideas on running regional summits and topics. Tabled for further discussion.
Lou went on to discuss the 2019 -20 Essay Topic. Lou opened the floor for further discussion. Bottoms said a good topic would be leadership in school activities looks like? Ridgeway talked about putting student leadership in the question. Bottoms said that he would be interested to see what the junior high students write about when it doesn’t say student leadership and see their perspective on leadership from administrators, coaches, parents, and officials side. Motion Grice, Ort second, to approve the 2019-20 middle school essay contest topic to Leadership in school activities looks like what? Motion passed 6-0.
Lou thanked Laura Ort for her years of service to the committee and presented her with a certificate.
The next scheduled meeting of the Sportsmanship Advisory Committee was scheduled for October 1st, 2019.The meeting adjourned at 11:30 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Lou Mazzocco, Assistant Executive Director
LM/sl