What Is Sportsmanship to you?

Currently hanging out in a thread, I feel it is necessary to air out some emotions.

When playing sports, my coaches emphasized staple-holds that are responsible for the foundations of sports.

1."Sacrifice is the foundation of greatness."

2."Teamwork and co-operation elevate the fallen to higher planes."

3."Excuses are tools of incompetence;They lead to monuments of nothingness, and those who use them will mount to nothing more"

4."If you attempt to cheat the game, you're trying to cheat what the game defines; and you will lose far more worth than that single game. For you find you have cheated yourself."

This is an attempt to write not on the various forms of cheating that occur in sports, nor is it a post to talk about which team is better then the other, so much as it is being made to bring recognition, to the notion, that winning a game is of no worth to a true athlete if they can't look at themselves as being the the benefactor of the game's ethics and policies.

It is almost as though people are comfortable with the idea of cheating whether chemical or physical disruption. It seems as though they are un-phased by these actions, and as though they should be accepted.

The aspect of sport competition that entices me, is that you live another day, to avenge your defeats. After defeat, you are equipped with the knowledge and the methods to win on an equal playing field.

A loss is only a defeat if you allow it to keep you down. I never looked at losing as the end, but rather the beginning of a rehabilitation. Where I could take the last game and turn the outcome. Thats how champions are made, by learning from mistakes. Also by standing up, and working to create history to your liking.

To underscore the work needed to get to that level is foolish, if anyone could do it at a professional level many of us would not be here on YardBarker. However to hold the highest standards for our professional franchises in the NHL, NBA, MLB, NFL, and even FIFA and UEFA in keeping the regulations of their respected games in tact is not foolish. It ought to be expected.

They set the template for the next generation of athletes, and I would not want them for a second to contemplate unfair play as a method of winning. The cost is their self standing, and their credibility as a respected athlete.

Call me naive, but I don't care who the franchise is, even in my own respective city. A cheater is not a champion, and any action done to alter the outcome of a game that is against the regulations sells the game, and the individual short.

My choice to acknowledge sportsmanship as a foundation gives me a vast outlook of controversial opinions, including that Hank Aaron is my home-run leader;

I know my opinion can not be de-valued, as I know that he was successful in conducting himself as an ambassador of the game. By setting the standards of hard work as high as any man could reach, without taking the attractive, and ultimately far easier alternative route.

So truthfully, am I mad/crazy?

Is it that hard to believe that I have problems putting people on the accomplishment pedestal when I feel that they aren't standing on the foundation of sports ethics?

Where does Sportsmanship fit in your daily play?

I live it and breathe it, and I have no problem justifying my stance, as I will pledge to keep an equal playing field, in honor of learning how to create success in myself, and learn from my mistakes in a respectable manner.

I challenge not only the individuals/barkers in the yard to set these standards, but the athletes as well.