How to Reward Good Sportsmanship on Your Team

Did you know that in the UK, over 80% of all children have played some kind of team sport within the last month? Even just between the 5-10 year olds, around 30%  of them have played a recent football game. Now just imagine the older people, and ones i university. That is a lot of people playing sports!

Team sports are a great way to get in shape, hone your skills, and learn about being part of a team. Most importantly, you can learn about sportsmanship, which is a life skill that goes far beyond the sports arena.

If you are a coach, it is your job to encourage good sportsmanship and reward players for doing well. But how can you reward everyone on the team?

Don't worry, in this article, we'll talk about three different ways you can reward sportsmanship on your team and make everyone feel like they are doing their part!

Recognition

Everybody likes being in the spotlight. You don't need to wait until the end of a season, or even a game, to acknowledge someone. Make an announcement and acknowledge the players when they do something well.

People don't always need fancy awards to be proud and feel appreciated. Small gestures matter a lot, too. For example, in cricket, a lot of the fame goes to whoever makes the winning play. But everyone involved in the game helped get to that point. Make sure they get an acknowledgement in front of the whole team.

Doing this makes the players feel appreciated and will help the other players learn about sportsmanship.

Awards

Praise is nice, but sometimes physical awards are great too. These don't always have to be expensive trophies, either. You can give away stickers, sports medals, or certificates to your players. You can do this at the end of a season or even at the end of each game to reward everyone.

You can give awards for almost anything. MVP and other common awards are cool, but you can also reward the small things. Just a couple examples would be "most supportive teammate," "best at bowling in cricket," or "scored the most goals in football."

Trophies

Of course, when it comes to sports trophies are considered the biggest accomplishment. But to encourage sportsmanship, it is a good idea to give everyone on the team a trophy. Everyone has put in their best effort and deserves to be rewarded.

Depending on the sport, some players may deserve a different trophy. For example, everyone on a football team is in it together. But if racing is your sport, someone has to be in first, second, and third place. First place will probably get a bigger trophy, but make sure everyone involved gets something to take home and display!

Teach Good Sportsmanship

Whatever you decide to do, the important thing is to make everyone on the team feel like part of the team. No one person should get constant praise while others are constantly getting ignored.

To promote good sportsmanship, it never hurts to give everyone on the team a little something now and then to show their hard work. Just contact us if you need help choosing a sportsmanship trophy or award for your team!