King’s Fork wins VHSL sportsmanship award

King’s Fork High School experienced both the thrill of victory and agony of defeat in the sports world during the 2013-14 school year, and the Virginia High School League recently recognized the school for how those affiliated with it — including student-athletes, coaches and fans — behaved in the face of either result.

The Virginia High School League’s assistant director for compliance, Tom Dolan, presented the school with the 2013-14 Claudia Dodson VHSL Sportsmanship, Ethics and Integrity Award during a School Board meeting last week in the council chambers at the new City Hall.

“It’s something we’re very proud of,” King’s Fork activities director Randy Jessee said.

Principal Stenette Byrd III accepted the award on behalf of the school and explained what it meant to him for his school to receive the honor.

“It’s very important to me,” he said. “Win or lose, we want to make sure that we put King’s Fork in a positive light.”

King’s Fork was one of a record 44 schools in the state to receive the award this year across all levels of school size. It has won it three times in its 10-year history and two times in the last three years.

To qualify for the honor, the school had to submit a book containing its plan to promote sportsmanship, a self-assessment of the effectiveness of that plan and a description of what changes it will make year-to-year to improve the sportsmanship in its program.

Jessee gave special praise to former KF cheerleading coach Kelly Annon.

“She played a major part of developing that book,” he said, also noting she was at the award presentation and spoke about the school’s efforts.

The effectiveness of a school’s plan is measured with a points system. Things like sportsmanship violations and ejections cost a school points.

“If they fall below 90 percent — or 45 out of 50 points — then they don’t get the award,” Dolan said. “For all intents and purposes, it’s a very objective process.”

He said the only subjective piece is when he evaluates the documentation that schools provide to validate their self-assessments.

A special priority was put on sportsmanship three years ago at King’s Fork by then-principal Suzanne Rice during a coaches’ meeting.

“We emphasized to the coaches how important this was to us, and Dr. Rice was very adamant about the fact that we could be winners and still carry ourselves in the correct manner,” Jessee said.

The school illustrates the importance of the matter in the way it handles athlete awards for each season. MVP awards are given at individual team meetings, but the sportsmanship award for each team is presented in front of everyone at that season’s athletic banquet.

“It’s just to let everybody know that we recognize that the sportsmanship award is the most coveted award that we give,” Jessee said.

King’s Fork also steps up the punishments on sportsmanship violations. If the VHSL suspends a player for a game, KF adds a game onto that.

Noting the difficulty of responding rightly when someone wrongs you during an intense physical activity, Jessee said, “It’s tough to control your emotions a lot of times, and I commend our coaches and athletes for working so hard on that.”