Local athletes represent Guernsey-Sunrise at sportsmanship summit

Mark DeLap
Posted 12/7/22

local student athletes participate in sportsmanship summit

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Local athletes represent Guernsey-Sunrise at sportsmanship summit

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GUERNSEY – Two student athletes from Guernsey-Sunrise High School were selected and invited among their peers to represent their high school at the State Sportsmanship Summit.

Freshman Mason Collar and sophomore Jordan Atwood who are both participating in three sports at Guernsey-Sunrise high school were alerted by their teacher, Mindy Kelley that the kids were chosen. Kelley said that the experience was very worthwhile and she accompanied the kids to the Ramkota Hotel in Casper where the summit took place Nov. 21.

“My opinion on the summit was that the key note speaker really brought I think everybody’s focus in on not giving up and always trying,” Collar said. “The speaker also made the summit fun because he was also a magican and he did a little magic show in the beginning and in the end. Once the speaker finished we split into groups and everybody that was in your group was from a different school no matter if you were a 1A school or a 4A school and we talked about sportsmanship and how are school uses ways to show respect and sportsmanship to other teams.”

The WHSAA Student Advisory Council sent the invitations out to certain chosen student athletes. The main focus to teach the students was to be influencers, able to take back the summit information to plan and implement a school action plan.

“Coming from a 1A school and being able to split into groups and speak with kids from bigger schools really opened my mind to the differences between us,” Atwood said. “They have many more opportunities for sports, they drug test players, and have tryouts. The students there from 3A and 4A schools have to be very talented. It was also interesting to compare the way that our coaches' rules differ depending on the school we go to.”

The students selected had to have strong leadership skills, they had to be responsible, they are influencers and positive role models in the school and community. They were also selected because of their high level of motivation and enthusiasm to be an effective speaker and facilitator.

“I thought it was cool how everybody’s school was different from another school but also a lot of the schools had a lot in common,” Collar said. “Toward the end of the summit we had to make an action plan for how we were going to make a difference in our school. Jordan and I came up with the plan to make this thing called the dub club which is where if you were getting good grades in school and if you were a good student who wasn’t in trouble or perhaps athlete that does good in school you were in the club. We would go down and have recess with the elementary school kids once a month just to show them that high school kids weren’t scary and were someone they could talk to if needed. The other thing we came up with was handing out sportsmanship T-Shirts at the end of games to the kids or adults who showed the most sportsmanship at the game no matter if you were a fan or an athlete. We thought these would be good fits to are school and encourage more students to be a good student and get good grades and also to show more sportsmanship.”

“Our keynote speaker was really cool and his story was very inspiring,” Atwood said. “On the other hand I don't think that they prepared very well to do our action plan because we didn't really discuss sportsmanship. A student from another school that attended the summit last year said that it was the exact same as last year but with a different speaker. I think the council that organized the summit had some good things going on but there are a few ways it could be improved in order to be effective.”

As with programs that generate ideas, this not only caused local students to think, but to plan, to organize and to find ways to make it better.