Program teaches kids that character counts…
It also shows that winning isn’t everything
By Margaret Slaby
The Fresno Bee Thursday, October 04, 2007
It was a warm September afternoon when Roosevelt Elementary student Jilee Schanda received a medal after a volleyball match against Madison Elementary.
Jilee, a sixth grader, didn’t get the medal because he team won. She didn’t get it because of her play, Jilee, 11, received the bronze medal with a yellow and blue neck ribbon for leadership and sportsmanship.
And that’s the whole idea behind the Victory Medal program, which all 13 Central Unified School District elementary schools and Houghton-Kearney, which is for kindergarten to eight-graders, are participating in.
“It sets a really positive tone for what sports are supposed to be about,” says Teague Elementary principal Ann Chavez. She started the program more than a year ago at her school. The other schools joined in November. The district’s tow middle schools will start later this year.
“Competition is important and kids like to win” she says, “but this has kept the integrity of what sports are supposed to be like for kids. It’s supposed to be fun. It’s supposed to be about giving 100% effort 100% of the time. It’s supposed to be about sportsmanship.”
The program is simple. At the end of games, each team picks a player from the opposing squad to receive the medal; a brief ceremony is held. Winners are announced on Mondays at their schools. Selection is based on sportsmanship, leadership and attitude.
Medals are a big deal. Jilee’s medal dangles from a snowboard on her bedroom wall. Teague sixth-grader Mason Brewster, 11, hung the one he received last year after a basketball game on the living room wall.
Sixth-grader Kelon White, 12, who earned a medal last year after his Teague basketball team beat Herndon-Barstow, says it feels good to be recognized.
“Most sports you don’t earn anything; you just do it,” he says. “With this, they congratulate you.” And for the right thing, says Charles Gutierrez, a football, basketball and track coach and co-athletic director at Liddell Elementary. “It’s teaching kids that they can go out and compete hard, but in the right way,” he says.
Instilling these lessons at a young age is the key, says Gary David, the district’s K-8 athletic director. He said it was important to get students”young, teach them right, and hopefully the lessons will stick with them.”
Ben Avila, a Teague football, basketball and track coach and Joe Bracamonte, the school’s vice principal and a football coach, have seen the program evolve. “Kids are carrying themselves more positively because they want to receive that award,” Avila says. Says Bracamonte:”The game is being played for what it is…a game.” But there’s more. “The kids want to win, but they’re looking for those positive characteristics in other students, and to do that, they have to know what they are,” he says. “This is teaching kids that character in any aspect of their life is important.”