"Pursuing Victory With Honor"
Basketball Summit Adopts Ethics Standards

Four dozen of the leading figures in U.S. amateur basketball met in Kansas City on August 27-29 to address ethical and character-building issues in their sport, at the "Pursuing Victory With Honor Men's and Boys' Basketball Summit." When they adjourned, they had crafted a plan that may transform amateur basketball, from recruiting through tournament refereeing.

Summit participants Jim Livengood, Tubby Smith and Dale Clayton work on the Gold Medal Standards for Amateur Basketball in Kansas City.

Sponsored by CHARACTER COUNTS! Sports and the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC), the Summit featured well-known delegates like teacher-coaches Roy Williams, Tubby Smith, Gene Keady and Jim Boeheim, as well as university presidents and major conference commissioners. They sat at tables arranged in a large U, as Michael Josephson of the Josephson Institute guided and prodded them. The discussions were searching, wide-ranging and at times intense.

The delegates sought to narrow the gap between the high ideals articulated in documents like the Arizona Sports Summit Accord and the low realities chronicled in the daily media. Some problems were deceptively complex, and delegates had to scrutinize potential solutions for impracticalities and escape hatches. On the final day they released the plan.

The group adopted dozens of proposals (to be published later this year as the final "Gold Medal Standards for Amateur Basketball"). Among them are:

  • Impose an ethical obligation on schools not to fire coaches during the season except for extreme misconduct or insubordination.

  • Label all scholastic and non-scholastic coaches "teacher-coaches" in recognition of the broad responsibilities they have to build character, minimize risks and develop their student-athletes.

  • Conduct background checks on all 13-18 year-olds through clearing house(s) created by Congress or individual states.

  • Rewrite amateurism rules to allow foreign student-athletes to play college basketball so long as they have not taken any compensation to play even if they played in a league with professional players.

  • Create codes of ethics for sports administrators, teacher-coaches, student-athletes, game officials and spectators at the youth, interscholastic and intercollegiate levels.

  • Recruit only those prospects who have a serious interest in education.

  • Create conflict-of-interest proposals that bar coaches from influencing top prospects for their own financial gain.

  • Limit coaches' input into selection of game officials.

  • Impose an obligation on game officials to call the rules as written, call them the same at beginning of game as end, and call them the same at beginning of season as during playoffs-tournaments.

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 Gold Medal Standards for Amateur Basketball

MEDIA COVERAGE

Read about the event on ESPN.com, in The Kansas City Star and the Lawrence Journal-World.

BASKETBALL SUMMIT PARTICIPANTS

. Dick Baddour, athletic director, UNC-Chapel Hill
. Steve Baker, president, NAIA
. Dutch Baughman, executive director, Division 1A Athletic Directors Association
. Jim Boeheim, coach, Syracuse University
. Dan Boggan, COO, NCAA
. Charles Breithaupt, athletic director, University Interscholastic League (Texas)
. Ken Carter, coach, Richmond (CA) H.S.
. Carol Cartwright, president, Kent State University
. Dale Clayton, coach, Carson-Newman College
. Dick Davey, coach, Santa Clara University
. Jim Delany, commissioner, Big 10
. Bobby Dodd, president, AAU
. Vince Dooley, athletic director, Univ. of Georgia
. Herman Frazier, athletic director, Alabama-Birmingham; vice chair, USOC
. Bob Frederick, chair, sportsmanship and ethical conduct committee, NCAA
. Dave Fry, executive director, Illinois H.S. Assn.
. Sen. Susan Gerard, Arizona Legislature
. Jim Haney, executive director, NABC
. Sen. Carl Hawkinson, Illinois Legislature
. Marie Ishida, executive director, California Interscholastic Federation
. Betty Jaynes, Women's Basketball Coaches Association
. Jack Jewett, president-elect, Arizona Board of Regents
. Michael Josephson, founder, Josephson Institute, CHARACTER COUNTS! and Pursuing Victory With Honor
. Robert Kanaby, executive director, National Federation of State High School Associations
. Ken Kaufman, coach, WPI; first VP, NABC
. Gene Keady, past-president, NABC; coach, Purdue University
. Dale Kelly, coordinator, men's basketball referees, Big XII, Conference USA, Sunbelt Conference
. Ernie Kent, coach, University of Oregon
. Roy Kramer, commissioner, SEC
. Jim Livengood, athletic director, Univ. of Arizona
. Barry Mano, president, National Association of Sports Officials
. Reggie Minton, assoc. executive director, NABC
. James Moeser, chancellor, UNC-Chapel Hill
. Mike Montgomery, coach, Stanford University
. Dave Odom, coach, University of South Carolina
. Judy Rose, athletic director, UNC-Charlotte
. Ed Rush, director of officials, NBA
. Kelvin Sampson, coach, University of Oklahoma
. Rod Seaford, chairman, AAU Board of Review
. Jim Seward, coach, Univ. of Central Oklahoma
. Harold Slemmer, executive director, Arizona Interscholastic Association
. Orlando "Tubby" Smith, coach, Univ. of Kentucky
. Mary Struckhoff, associate director, NFHS
. Kevin Weiberg, commissioner, Big XII Conference
. Bob Williams, coach, Schaumburg (IL) H.S.
. Roy Williams, coach, University of Kansas
. Willis Wilson, coach, Rice University
. Morgan Wootten, coach, DeMatha Catholic H.S. (MD)

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