By Mick Holien
If there is one thing that competition, meaning not just sports, often has an opportunity to teach a participant is sportsmanship.
And that I believe goes beyond offering an open hand to help a fallen competitor to their feet or that obligatory hug at competition’s end.
Sportsmanship often surfaces when the winner of an outing, match or any contest speaks to the media and while complimenting his own players takes the opportunity to describe the opposition favorably.
It is a bit odd that I remember a grand example although some of the facts could be a bit sketchy, which seems to be just acceptable in these times of alternate facts etc.
In 2009 a player for so Oregon , as I remember, blew out her knee while rounding first base after hitting a home run. Even though they now trailed in the game a pair of players from the Ellensburg, Wash school came out of the dugout and assisted the player to complete her home run.
All one has to do is Google sportsmanship to see how many nice things people have done for each other, some because of a Make-A-Wish request buy mostly because it is part of their nature.
That takes us to Sioux Falls, S.D. where Kate Kynja (her there’s a vowel lol) was competing in the State A Golf Tournament,
Her score in the final round was good enough for the individual title and moved her team at 17 under into a position to also claim team honors. State Champs ya hear.
But in checking her scorecard Kate discovered she took a five on a hole that she wrote down a four and since
she recorded the wrong score she was disqualified.
Few knew of her miswrite and given what was at stake a true example of sportsmanship.
