Changing the Culture: How to Combat the Sportsmanship Crisis

This article appears in the April edition of USA Lacrosse Magazine. Join our momentum.

Field monitor. It’s a new job the Randolph (N.J.) Township Parks, Recreation and Community Services Department created last year in response to an alarming decline in sportsmanship across the spectrum of youth sports.

For $25 per hour, the monitor attends athletic events in the northern New Jersey suburb such as youth lacrosse games. They are identified visually onsite as the monitor before games. Among their tasks is to “ensure that any actions or communications directed at any individual(s), whether they are players, officials, coaches or spectators are deemed appropriate in nature.”

The job is one part of Randolph’s multifaceted “Change the Culture” initiative, under the leadership of Recreation Advisory Board committee member Joseph Farenetta, to promote better sportsmanship and curb the growing number of incidents leading to worse behavior from players, coaches and parents.

“We did it because we saw what was going on in youth sports in the suburban communities of northern New Jersey,” said Joseph Nazzaro, director emeritus of Randolph Boys Lacrosse program that he was instrumental in starting in 1990 and chairman of the Randolph Recreation Community Advisory Committee.

Last year, the North Jersey Junior Lacrosse League documented 32 incidents of coach, parent and player ejections at youth and middle school games — including one that resulted in multiple arrests.

But bad sportsmanship is not just a New Jersey issue. It’s not a Mid-Atlantic or Northeast issue, not a hotbed or nontraditional lacrosse-area issue. And it’s not just a lacrosse issue.

It’s national and it’s everywhere in alarming and increasing numbers — fights among parents, fans chasing officials to their cars after games, coaches berating officials during games and youth and high school athletes mimicking the behavior they see from adults.

“Because winning has become the goal and purpose for too many people, then we’ll do anything to win and therefore sportsmanship goes out the door,” said John O’Sullivan, founder and CEO of the Changing the Game Project, which aims to make sports youth-based again and end their “adultification.”

USA Lacrosse has equipped local organizations with resources ranging from best practices to educational content focused on sportsmanship. Other governing bodies have used similar grassroots efforts to wrangle what some consider a national epidemic.

“Behavior is causing a lot of problems, not just for the officials’ population but for the kids’ experience,” said Karissa Niehoff, CEO of the National Federation of State High School Associations, which launched its Bench Bad Behavior campaign in 2022.

The NFHS cites a National Association of Sports Officials 2023 survey of more than 35,000 officials in which 68.81 percent answered that sportsmanship was getting worse, compared to 56.98 percent answering so in their 2017 survey. The same surveys both attributed the cause of most sportsmanship problems to parents.

“If something goes wrong, it’s not the child’s fault,” said Matthew Williams, associate professor of sports management at UVA Wise. “The parents think it’s the coach’s fault. Or the officials’ fault. When the kids see the parents yelling, the kids pick up that behavior. And it’s just getting worse and worse.”

Williams’ article, “The Real Cause of Losing Sports Officials,” in The Sport Journal last year highlighted a post-pandemic decrease in officials due to a lack of respect for them.

“It’s a lot of new officials that get discouraged and they don’t last,” said Bob Nuse, who has officiated New Jersey high school lacrosse since 1991, training officials and assigning for the state since 2001. “They’re having to deal with the fan behavior, which is not good, and I think a lot of them just get discouraged and decide it’s not really worth it.”

Officiating numbers overall are back on the rise since last year, according to the NFHS, thanks to concerted efforts to attract them. But in North Jersey, for example, it’s hard not to correlate the rise in ejections to the decline in officials.

“Last year, I had 185 officials,” said Randy Mills, head official and assigner for the NJJLL. “I’m at 161 now.”

It’s far from the only adverse effect of poor sportsmanship.

“Where you have coaches or parents who behave so badly, I also see their kids behave that badly, yelling and questioning refs, having a terrible attitude, using horrible language on the field,” said Courtney Veigel, Indiana Youth Lacrosse Association vice president of girls’ lacrosse. “But I also see kids who are just mortified by their parents’ behavior.”

“Parents have so much invested in their children that they want to reap the rewards financially or bragging rights so they do whatever they can,” Williams said. “If they have to degrade an official to get their way, they will do that. That’s where we’re losing our sportsmanship.”

Coaches and parents set the example — good or bad. Mills points out that when coaches berate officials, players and fans often follow suit.

“I’ve had cases where a parent was yelling at us on the field and the kid has literally stopped and turned around and yelled, ‘Mom, shut up,’” Mills said. “A lot of times the parent is embarrassing them. I’ve thrown a parent out and parents on the same team have clapped.”

The IYLA is one organization exploring solutions to ensure better sportsmanship, even going to new extremes. For the first time last year they hired an off-duty police officer to be on site for its year-end tournament.

“We actually did have to utilize them in one situation,” Veigel said. “And sadly, it was a 10U game at the beginning of the day. We had to bring the officer over to make a coach leave.”

The tournament is for recreation-level teams 10U to 14U. Winners receive $3 medals.

“We kind of go back and forth. Should we even have the tournament? It's just a rec league,” Veigel said. “It’s the adults are who's ruining it for the kids. That's the unfortunate part.”

Other issues arise outside of the games. When the 2020 murder of George Floyd sparked a national dialogue about race relations and police brutality, a team from the racially diverse Cleveland suburb Shaker Heights showed up to a game to find the other team wearing uniforms with “Back the Blue” and “10-29,” the police code to conduct a search for wanted people or people with warrants.

“It made everyone feel badly,” said Matt Kelly, a coach who is president of the board for Shaker Heights Youth Lacrosse. “You’re out there trying to play the sport and have fun and teach your kids how to have good sportsmanship, how to shake hands when you don’t look the same or even think the same.”

Kelly worked with Matt Burke, USA Lacrosse’s regional manager for the Midwest, to address the incident. Approaches vary, from strict zero tolerance policies that are becoming more common to programs designed to reward good sportsmanship. USA Lacrosse has developed a sportsmanship toolkit for program leaders based on the most successful responses. There's also a cultural competency course  for coaches and players that delves into topics such as unconscious bias, microaggressions, social class and inclusive leadership.

“We’re trying to be proactive in sharing best practices,” Burke said. “Every league, every town, every state does things a little bit differently and they all have their success stories. So how could we share those and tailor it for each individual program to make it work for them?”

It will take a multi-pronged approach. It starts with curbing small behaviors that precede a larger kerfuffle. Officials in some areas now are being instructed to flag the first negative communication from a coach.

“Something as simple as we throw a flag and I’ve got a 10-year-old showing me the palms of his gloves like, ‘What did I do?’” Mills said. “For a coach not to correct that immediately, to me it is just wrong.”

Officials can be a part of the solution if they are trained to communicate concisely and effectively —  and empowered to educate coaches and players at younger age levels.

“We can be instructors just as much as we can be there to officiate and keep the game fair,” said Keith Glock, who was head official of the 2023 World Lacrosse Men’s Championship gold medal game in San Diego, has worked NCAA final fours and still does high school games.

Many organizations are trying to put in place measures to identify and address misconduct well before seasons begin.

Randolph makes parents and coaches sign their Yellow Card Policy that states poor behavior can be reported and subsequently punished with game suspensions or required behavior modification programs for offenders.

“We have seen very positive results as a result of that,” Nazzaro said. “We’ve seen a decrease in the number of yellow card incidents. It seems to be working.”

Setting expectations at the outset of the season is critical. Randolph also holds mandatory parent meetings, and they are considering hosting a forum next year to broaden the discussion about unsportsmanlike behavior at youth sporting events.

“We really recommend programs do a preseason meeting so that all of the coaches are able to sit down together,” Burke said. “They see each other face to face, they have a discussion, and when you get to the game and things get heated you have in the back your mind, this is a person who has a full-time job and a family, and I actually enjoy talking to him.”

The same strategy is behind handshakes between teams or reading a sportsmanship pledge before games start. Adding signage at venues reinforces sportsmanship. Randolph announces its policy and introduces their onsite monitor before games in case there are any issues, a proactive model Niehoff applauds.

“We just have to be more direct in the moment,” she said. “You can do it positively. You can be very strict and clear and also be positive. We just have to do it before the whistle blows, and then we need our administrators on site to engage when something happens.”

Then there are those rewarding good behavior. The Washington Schoolgirls Lacrosse Association has successfully operated an Honor the Game initiative for 15 years.

At the conclusion of each game, a player from each team awards an opposing player an Honor the Game pin for their good sportsmanship and effort. The athletes receive recognition for sportsmanlike acts such as supporting teammates, playing hard but fair, acknowledging a good play by the opponent or helping one off the ground after a foul.

Immediately after the handshake lines, all players from both teams face each other. Parents/spectators form a large circle around the two teams. With the support and assistance from coaches as needed, a representative from each team steps forward, introduces herself and announces the number of the player to be recognized. Then they share the specific details about the actions that honored the game and present the player with a pin.

Officials are invited to watch the ceremony.

“The goal is to encourage sportsmanship and build this tradition of honoring the game from a young age so that it continues with them,” WSLA executive director MK Benshoof said. “We’re hoping it has a lasting positive effect on the players and the teams.”

Good behavior starts with respecting each other.

“The platinum rule says treat people how they want to be treated,” Kelly said. “We try to do that with our kids and make them go out and understand that things aren’t always fair, but you always play with good sportsmanship. It’s an absolute requirement, and it’s been good.”

Improving sportsmanship in youth lacrosse — all youth sports, really — requires commitment from everyone involved in the athlete experience.

But it also requires that everyone stay in their lane, something O'Sullivan suggested can be difficult with personal and sometimes financial interests at stake.

“I love this idea of know your role,” O’Sullivan said. “When you show up, you can be one of four things. You can be the athlete participant. You can be the coach. You can be an official. Or you can be a fan. You can never be two things. When coaches officiate or fans start coaching, that’s when problems arise. So just know your role. If you’re a fan, show up and cheer. If you’re a coach, coach. If you’re an official, officiate. If you’re an athlete, play.”