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Resources
for Athletes

Here are some suggestions for getting involved with ABW and returning character-driven behavior into the sport experience.  For more ideas, please contact us and ask one of the program directors or education director for assistance. 

Join ABW:

  1. Adopt the ABW Code and present it to your team at the beginning of the season.
  2. Personalize the Code with a statement of your principles or team rules to preserve the idea of a common Code held by ABW members across the country and allow you to create a unique document that is important to you and your players.
  3. Ask each athlete and parent or guardian to sign the Code on the same document or create a large poster board version of the Code signed by the entire team as a public document.
  4. Register players as members of ABW. 

Teach the Code:

  1. Use the ABW website “Tip of the Week” to obtain ideas drawing on current events in sport to teach the Code to your athletes.
  2. Post the ABW newsletter that contains articles that encourage and reinforce your athletes to live by the Code.
  3. Download ABW curriculum guides and use them as resources for talking about the Code in daily meetings or training camp experiences.
  4. Download and distribute ABW educational materials that provide stories and suggestions about sport behavior for your athletes and parents to read.
  5. Attend an ABW regional coaching conference to learn more about incorporating the Code into your coaching style and team activities.
  6. Send your athletes to an ABW regional sport clinic to develop their sport skills under the guidance of coaches and athletes that incorporate the values of sportsmanship into training.

Recognize honorable character

  1. Provide certificates of completion for all members on your team that joined ABW and lived by the Code.
  2. Award a “Spirit of ABW” medal at the end of the season to the athlete who best exemplifies the Code.  To increase individual attention to the Code, you can identify from the outset that players will vote for the recipient.
  3. Nominate those who receive a medal to your State Organizing Committee for inclusion in the annual “Spirit of ABW Awards Luncheon” in your state.
  4. Nominate an athlete or coach from your state for ABW’s annual Coach Wooden Cup honoring a professional and college athlete that best represents the values of the Code.

Promote the ABW message:

  1. Place ABW color posters in locker rooms, gyms, and playing fields as visible reminders of the expected sport behavior.
  2. Demonstrate sportsmanship to visiting teams at all competitions.
    1. Create banners welcoming opponents and fans to your facility
    2. Ask home team fans to stand and applaud as visiting team is introduced as well as the home team.
    3. Thank the officials after each competition
  3. Obtain free promotional items such as key chains, ink pens, and bumper stickers for your athletes to use and to give to others.
  4. Purchase some incentive items such as lapel pins and t-shirts to share with athletes, administrators, coaches and parents.
  5. Obtain a speaker from our Speakers Bureau to address your student body or all the teams in your league.

Advocate for change:

  1. Give the Code to sports programs that feed into yours alerting future athletes to the expected sport behavior when they reach your program.
  2. Send or present the Code to fellow coaches, encouraging adoption by all programs involved in your sport.
  3. Write an article for submission to your sport’s trade publication or coaching convention that expresses the need for a change in sport behavior and how the Code has enabled you to make those changes in your program.

Reach out to your community

  1. Create ways your team can give back to your local community during or after the season.  You can search the website “Giving Back” button for ideas.
  2. Examine ABW’s list of partner organizations to see what other teams in your area are doing and explore ways you might work together.

Get nationally involved:

  1. Sign up your team for Star Players, an ABW program that awards stars toward a bronze, silver, or gold medal for completing a set of activities based on the Code.  Participants that reach the gold level may attend a summer sport camp with ABW athletic advisory members, interact online with professional athletes, and compete for college tuition grants.
  2. Enroll your captains in ABW’s Captain Certification program through which they can earn a captain certificate and a patch for their letter jacket by completing a set of activities based on sport leadership.  Participants that receive exemplary commendation are entitled to serve as leaders at a summer sport camp presented by ABW athletic advisory members.
  3. Ask your athletes to volunteer for Courts for Communities, an ABW program that enables them to contribute to improving the lives of others as volunteers on the construction of a playfield in selected rural and/or urban areas across the country.  Travel, housing, meals and two-weeks of supervised work and social activities are provided by ABW staff.
  4. Identify team members ready for Athletes Abroad, a program through which athletes and coaches have the opportunity to live and train with other athletes around the world.  Travel, home-stay accommodations, a training program, and several social-cultural amenities are provided by ABW staff.

 

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