COLUMN: Sports teach lessons, good and bad

I made my annual trip to Ohio last week to see cousins whose dad moved them from Morganton to the Buckeye State in the 1930s. To no one’s surprise, the main topic of conversation was Ohio State football.

In my opinion, you could roll Duke and Carolina basketball into one big program and it wouldn’t have the impact on our state that Buckeye football has in Ohio. Sadly, fans realize the NCAA’s investigation into their team’s improper sale of memorabilia and school-related items could end in some type of probation any day.

The last thing I expected to see up there was an article on UNC and N.C. State’s game Saturday, but there it was, a “Carolina rivalry gets testy,” headline.

You probably had far more media coverage here of just how heated it became. UNC coach Everett Withers pointed out the Tar Heels graduation rates were higher than the Wolfpack’s, and those comments didn’t sit too well with State coach Tom O’Brien. He pointed out his rival’s recent trouble with the NCAA for improper benefits and academic misconduct among members of the football team.

This world is full of trouble, and in the past, you could turn to the world of sports as a sanctuary. Bu not any more.

Saturday’s big LSU-Alabama game was between two teams on NCAA probation. The universities of Michigan, Tennessee, West Virginia, Texas Tech, Southern California and Georgia Tech, along with North Carolina, all ran afoul of NCAA rules in the past two years.

The NBA season is on hold because the owners and players can’t agree on how to divide billions of dollars. The NFL barely avoided a shutdown this fall for the same reason.  MLB turned its back on drug testing while players made a travesty of long-time home run records with the use of steroids and other enhancements.

If you’re looking to something in the sports world as a light-hearted alternative to all these problems, about the only place to look locally is Draughn High School’s win in the state football playoffs last week and the upcoming championship games for county youth football Saturday at Patton High.

Don’t ever forget, however, that for every one of these problems there are hundreds of schools with excellent athletic programs. These schools are not only meeting the academic needs of their young stars but also teaching them gets lessons through sports. The pluses far outweigh the minuses.

The temptation today is too look at sports are they are played out by the superpowers and pros. When this occurs, we pay little attention to the teams who are getting it right.

One of these great football programs is found at Miami University of Ohio. The school was known for years as the “Cradle of Coaches” after turning out such giants as Paul Brown, Woody Hayes, Ara Parseghian and Bo Schembechler.

The athletic director for the Redhawks, Brad Bates, was quoted last week as saying: “At the core, we are educators employed by institutions of higher learning, who lay out our ethics, values and expectations. Whenever you waver from that overreaching aim  … you don’t belong in higher education.”

In the hands of a good coach, the game experience is going to be meaningful to the development of youngsters, from youth levels through the school years and even into the pros.

I urge every coach who reads this to respect the influence he or she has on their team and to be a good example for each member of it. Your team will remember you for this far longer than for how many games you win.

Roy Waters is a sports columnist for The News Herald. Waters was baseball and basketball coach at Salem High School from 1955-66, where his teams won 18 championships. In 2007, he was inducted into the Burke County Sports Hall of Fame.