The Caltech athletes join previously named Sports Ethics Fellows, Lance Armstrong, four-time winner of the Tour De France; Marion Jones, five-time World Champion triple Gold Medallist at the Sydney Olympics; 2002 Olympic Snowboarding Gold Medallist Ross Powers; Robin Roberts of ABC's Good Morning America and ESPN; New Orleans Saints quarterback Aaron Brooks; and two-time Olympic Marathon Gold Medallist Frank Shorter.
Daniel E. Doyle, Jr., founder and executive director of the Institute for International Sport, addressed the Caltech student-athletes, coaches and administrators on February 20 as part of his lecture series to member schools of the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference. The lecture topic was sportsmanship and leadership and was sponsored by the NCAA Foundation.
Caltech Director of Athletics Tim Downes said, "The impact of Dan Doyle's presentation was felt deeply by all of our athletes. I've never seen them respond in such an enthusiastic and overwhelming manner.
"The courage they display, with little recognition for their accomplishments as to wins and losses, is a perfect example of everything that is positive about sports and competition. It is very hard for me to articulate what athletics means to our students and what being named Sports Ethics Fellows will mean to them and Caltech."
Doyle said, "I don't think I've ever observed an athletic program that better defines sports' most virtuous qualities than that of Caltech. I met a group of young people who face formidable academic pressure and who value their sports experience for reasons that transcend winning. I met a group of coaches who are passionate in their commitment to help these young people learn valuable lessons from sports and to provide them with an experience that lessens the extraordinary academic pressure they face every day.
"A number of Caltech student-athletes told me that they consider their time in sports as vital to their well-being. In many cases, the Tech varsity athletes are not nearly as skilled as their opponents. Yet at every other school on my lecture tour in their league, I heard opposing coaches and athletes comment on how much they admire the competitiveness and sportsmanship of the Caltech teams.
"Their lessons are learned not from winning as much as from teamwork, developing friendships, managing time, and turning the disappointment of frequent losses into a resolve to do better the next game. These are brilliant young people who will do great things for this world and who embody the best in sports.
"Courage and success come in different forms. When it comes to summoning courage to deal with disappointment, including a continued commitment to team no matter what the result, these student-athletes are among the greatest winners I've ever encountered."
Sports Ethics Fellows are asked to help promote the ideals of NSD by writing editorials for newspapers, magazines, and the Internet, by doing public service announcements on sportsmanship, by making appearances at schools or community groups, and by assisting the Institute in formulating future programs for National Sportsmanship Day.
Sports Ethics Fellows are selected in conjunction with the Institute's National Sportsmanship Day (NSD) "Dare to Play Fair" program celebrated annually on the first Tuesday of March. As part of the 13th annual event, to be held on Tuesday, March 4, more than 10,000 elementary, middle, and high schools, as well as colleges and universities from all 50 U.S. states and more than 100 countries, will celebrate the importance of ethics, honesty, peaceful conflict resolution and fair play in athletics and society. National Sportsmanship Day was conceived to raise awareness about issues related to sportsmanship and ethics in athletics and daily life, as well as to stimulate meaningful dialogue among school administrators, coaches, teachers and students. Russell Hogg, chairman of the Board of the Trustees of the Institute for International Sport said, "This has become the biggest sportsmanship initiative in the world, and its success confirms what the power of an idea can achieve."
In addition, The Institute for International Sport is coordinating NSD celebration events in six cities in Southern New England. Former Providence College all-America basketball star Marvin Barnes will be the featured speaker at school functions in Central Falls, Pawtucket and Providence, RI. There will also be special events in East Hartford, CT, Boston and Worcester, MA.
One of the highlights of National Sportsmanship Day is the USA Today Sportsmanship Essay Contest. Winning essays will be printed in the March 4 edition of USA Today. To learn more about each of the 2002 Sports Ethics Fellows visit the NSD Web site and click on the Sports Ethics Fellows icon in the navigation bar. Another highlight is the "Dare to Play Fair" CD-ROM, an interactive and graphically rich presentation that contains three 45-minute lessons, designed to instruct teachers, coaches and students on the ideals of sportsmanship and detail their progress over the course of a semester or season. The "Dare to Play Fair" CD-ROM is a project made possible by a grant from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.
National Sportsmanship Day is a program of the Institute for International Sport founded by Daniel E. Doyle, Jr. in 1986. Located in Kingston, Rhode Island, on the campus of The University of Rhode Island, the Institute for International Sport administers more than 10 international programs that reach over 160 countries on six continents. Currently, National Sportsmanship Day, the Center for Sports Parenting, the World Leadership Summit and the Scholar-Athlete Games are the main projects the Institute has developed to help spread the message of using athletics and art as tools to promote goodwill among future world leaders. To learn more about all of the Institute's programs, visit its website at http://www.internationalsport.com. ###
Caltech Media Contact: Jill Perry, (626) 395-3226, jperry@caltech.edu
Institute for International Sport Contact: Gregg Burke, (401) 874-2375
Written by Jill Perry