Mari's Mailbag - Sportsmanship

Good Sportmanship is key in any endeavor but especially when you represent a body of officials that govern a certain sport. Everyone is asking, where did things go wrong? Why the negative mood? The Drama. Think about it. It's sportsmanship, the key to getting along with others. How you recieve others, how you converse, mingle - all goes to the core of the individual. The attitude in which they preceive things, how they project their actions, is all sportsmanship. We have to be good sports in life. Take things in stride, shake it off, laugh, accept apologies and not hold grudges. I had a teammate quit because an official yelled at him for riding a certain board made by a maker that was at issue years ago with the owner of the sim where he was surfing. I found this appalling. The original drama happened years ago and this official was still bringing up past issues and was not even the owner of that sim. They were just surfing the same time as my team member and saw him on that board and reprimanded him. GET a life people, please. Let's remember to be good sports. Carry good vibes. Thank people. Congratulate people. Respect people. Offer help. This may be Second Life but morals should be the same as in Real Life. This isn't a place to pretend to be RUDE. YOU just ARE. If you are rude here, then I think you are in Real Life, too. Again, I cannot stress it enough, BE A GOOD SPORT.
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2 comments:

Colleen Brennan said...

Mari,

In the time that I have known you I am so happy to say that you exemplify the things you take a stand for here. Actions speak louder than words and yours have always screamed good sportsmanship to me. I do not know who the team mate was in your example but I wish we could somehow entice them to give us another try. Sounds like they may have run into one person who just does not get it. The overwhelming majority of the members of our community I have come to know do get it. Thank you for reminding us how important this is.

Lissa Pinion said...

Mari, great article darlin! My two cents and ya'll can keep the change if you wish is until we stop allowing bad sportsmanship, until we as a group stand up and say "No more!", I see it only getting worse. We have repeat offenders in the bad sportsmanship arena. They play the apology game, give some lame excuse, and we say "it's ok" Why would they change? They don't need to at this point. New comers see this and they make their decision as to whether to be a good sport or do a John Mcenroe (yep, I'm old lol) and take others down with them. Until the bad sports are weeded out or shown in some way that sinks in that we won't tolerate it any longer, we will be dealing with this issue a very long time.
There are those that no matter what, shine on and encourage others. Please know that we all know who you are and when the boneheads show out, we appreciate you all the more.