The WPIAL’s annual Sportsmanship Summit was held this past Thursday, Nov. 14 at Heinz History Center & Sports Museum. This event, organized by Associate Executive Director Amy Scheuneman is held every year with numerous schools attending.

John Harmon, Eric Chalus, Jr., Jason Muench, Alexa Psotka, Emily Carter, and Olivia Westphal represented BPHS.

First, they covered “What is Sportsmanship?”. Basically, it was explained as respect. They emphasized how players, coaches, and fans need to respect everyone involved in the game. More and more instances are occurring where people are not respecting each other in a game. So, this summit was to bring the schools together hoping that the people who attended would pass along the information to their teams.

Next, they had a panel of six media people from around the Pittsburgh area. The six panelists were Eleanor Bailey, Observer-Reporter and The Almanac (South); Andrew Chiappazzi, Beaver County Times (West); John Enrietto, Butler Eagle (North); Chris Harlan, TribLIVE HSSN; Paul Schoefield, TribLIVE HSSN (West); and Mike White, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. They gave us their perception of what sportsmanship is to them. They told stories on when they saw sportsmanship and told us who was the most rememberable moment of sportsmanship.

Eric Chalus said, “I thought the panel was really cool and it gave some pretty good tips.”

After that, the boys and girls were split into two groups. First, the girls went and took a tour of the History Center and Sports Museum. They had to find an athlete from the sports museum who displayed remarkable sportsmanship. Once they have found that person, they sent out a tweet of who it was and what they did. As the girls were doing that the boys were listening and interacting with a group called (PAAR). PAAR stands for Pittsburgh Action Against Rape. This group gave us scenarios and we had to give solutions.

“Seeing all the athletes from Pittsburgh doing these great things was pretty exciting,” said John Harmon.

Continuing, the next speaker that spoke was Dr. Karen Hall. Karen is the ESPN3 color Analyst and Leadership Learning Lab Facilitator. The reason that she spoke was for her high school actions. She was the first African American girl at her school and the first to play on a basketball team. She shared stories where she had every right to be rude, but she decided to be respectful and kind.

Lastly, the WPIAL Sportsmanship Committee gave out the 2018-2019 Sportsmanship Awards. Every year they give out four awards. This year the four schools were Seneca Valley, Peters Township, West Greene, and Winchester Thurston. To win an award your school’s sports teams have to display excellent sportsmanship throughout the seasons.