The USA Sportsmanship Team is being launched by the team at Excalibur Sports Network. After ten successful years as a strategic partner of Pop Warner Little Scholars youth football and developer of the award winning Dick Butkus Football Network website, "The Net's Largest Football Community" (www.dickbutkus.com), our experience showed us that there was an urgent need for a national program that showcased the ideals of good sportsmanship. The Dick Butkus Football Network with over 7,000 of it's partner football websites will kick off The USA Sportsmanship Team in August 2002 with full emphasis on the sport of football. Early 2003 will see the expansion of the USA Sportsmanship Team to other sports in the USA: baseball, basketball, hockey and soccer.

   Overview
The USA Sportsmanship Team will be a clearinghouse for sportsmanship resources that will target specific groups involved in the sport of football: players, coaches, parents, teams, leagues, schools and organizations. We will educate and inform all members with practical applications. A comprehensive honors and awards program will recognize those individuals who are living examples of good sportsmanship. Finally, through our non-profit National Sportmanship Foundation, we will motivate and support our members with scholarships for higher education and grants for improving their league facilities and equipment.


 

    The IWFFA has partnered with the National Sportsmanship Foundation, to highlight and ackowledge players and coaches who demonstrate good "Sportship",     character, and who can serve as role models for our sport.

For all of our tournaments (starting with the 12th annual Kelly McGillis Classic) , the IWFFA will recognize one player and one coach who demonstrates such qualities, who will be featured on the National Sportsmanship Foundation website, as well as our website under tournament results and special listing for IWFFA/National Sportship Recipients.

 

Our first recipient for NSF / IWFFA player goes to: Angela Keene - Elmhurst, IL. USA

  Angela not only won the Most Valuable Player award for Defense for her team: Chicago Spin Wrecking, but won the admiration and respect of the officials who explained that   though   Angela took some really hard blocks on   the line...... continued to get up with a smile on her face and "shook it off". Throughout the tournament, Angela played a   very clean game   and was always friendly with her opposing teams and respectable to the officials and   tournament organizers.

 

Our first recipient for NSF / IWFFA Coach goes to: Stephanie Miller - Bellaire, TX. USA

Stephanie's many awards include: All Star - Kelly McGillis Classic 2000 for secondary defense in the Highly Competitive Division, All Star as Running Back in the 2001 Classic tournament for the Recreational Division, MVP Offense for Houston Ice House in the 2002 Dallas tournament and MVP Offense for the Houston Inferno team in the Recreational Division for the 2003 Kelly Classic.

During the tournament, there are games which can be very stressful and tough to handle. Stephanie's team was involved in a protest dispute which took hours to settle and which would effect their team placement in the next level of play (placing in the play-offs). Though the opposing team was pretty voicestress, Stephanie always maintained a calm, cool demeanor which softened the tension and made things easier for the tournament organizers to handle. Her patience and tolerance was very obvious which handled the situation so well.

 

List of NSF / IWFFA Recipients for year 2003

Kelly McGillis Classic, Key West, FL USA

NSF / IWFFA Player - Angela Keene

NSF / IWFFA Coach - Stephanie Miller

Houston, TX Tournament USA

NSF / IWFFA Player and Coach - Mary Jo Bates - Webster, TX. USA

Oslo, Norway Tournament

NSF / IWFFA Player - Camilla Heglund - Oslo, Norway

NSF / IWFFA Coach - David Lee - Oslo, Norway