Presents  RealSportsmanship

An interactive program on sportsmanship for both players and coaches that has already been shown to help reduce ejections in high school football by more than 60 percent over three years was adopted for use this past fall by the Sun Belt Conference with high expectations that it will have the same positive impact at the college level.

Sun Belt players and coaches must complete the "RealSportsmanship" platform as part of its requirements for competing within the conference. The Sun Belt commitment is for five years.

"Real Sportsmanship," an interactive, reality-based platform, was developed by "Learning Through Sports, Inc.," the latter founded by Brian Shulman, entrepreneur and formerly all-SEC punter for Auburn University in the 1980s.

Shulman, who thought the Golden Rule applied as much in competitive sports as in everyday life, originally developed sportsmanship platforms for high schools in Alabama and later Mississippi. Over three years, there was a significant drop in ejections in both players and coaches.

MURFREESBORO, Tenn.—Dr. Colby B. Jubenville, professor of sport management at Middle Tennessee State University, was selected by the Nashville Business Journal

for its second annual Forty Under 40 special section spotlighting top Nashville-area business leaders under the age of 40 who excel in their industries and show dynamic leadership.

Winners were chosen from a pool of more than 300 names and more than 450 nominations.

Chris Gay/The Augusta Chronicle

The scene was what you expected when a ranked basketball team goes on the road and loses. Home fans stormed the fans in jubilation. The opposing coaches and players walked off the court unharmed.

This was the scene at Valdosta State earlier this month, when the Blazers upset then-No. 1 Augusta State. But not every post-game celebration goes as smoothly, as we witnessed Monday night. Check out the photos by photographer Michael Holahan below.

After USC Aiken's greatest victory of the season, a three-point win over rival Augusta State, the convocation center switched from exultation to mob scene in a split second. Instead of savoring the monumental upset over the nation's sixth-ranked team, USC Aiken's coaches and players were busy trying to clean up that mess.

Training, sanctions called keys to ending poor sportsmanship

In the wake of a fracas between a former Mississippi congressman and a soccer coach, experts point to training and tougher punishment as ways to reduce fights on and off the field.

An atmosphere has come to exist "where emotional outbursts among parents, most of whom are vicariously living sports through their child, is tolerated," said Fred Engh, founder and president of the National Alliance for Youth Sports and author of Why Johnny Hates Sports.

A 2008 survey by SportingKid magazine showed that 76 percent of those responding reported witnessing a coach arguing with another coach, official or parent at a practice or game, and 29 percent had witnessed a physical confrontation involving coaches, officials or parents.

Former 3rd District Rep. Chip Pickering and Chris Hester, who coached the soccer team that competed against Pickering's son, recently exchanged blows after Pickering said Hester called his son "pathetic," driving the child to tears. Hester, who was wearing a neck brace, says Pickering yelled at him and pulled him from his vehicle while Pickering maintains he defended himself because Hester attacked him first.

Having just been held to negative rushing yardage in a 19-8 loss, University of Oregon running back LeGarrette Blount put his personal post-game frustrations on full display. As shown repeatedly on Boise State's video board to widespread partisan jeering, Blount dropped Bronco linebacker Byron Hout to the blue turf with a clean right cross to the jaw.

It was Thursday, Sept. 3 — opening night of the NCAA's Respect Weekend.

Earlier that day, Oklahoma State University coach Mike Gundy was sufficiently unnerved by the prospect of a pregame handshake between entire teams — the focal-point designate of Respect Weekend proceedings on campuses nationwide — that he announced his team would not participate when Georgia visited that Saturday. "Our first concern was [we'll] have 115 guys out there, and they'll have 70. It just takes one guy to pop off," Gundy explained during a subsequent media luncheon. "Then I don't know how you're going to break it up. How do you control something like that?"