Empire 8 Launches New Sportsmanship Program and Logo
January 11, 2005
ROCHESTER, NY - Empire 8 Commissioner Chuck Mitrano
announced the conference's latest sportsmanship initiative
that includes a sportsmanship slogan and logo, Sportsperson
of the Week program, and annual Empire 8 Sportsmanship
Member of Distinction award.
"This is a dynamic and thorough program,"
explains Mitrano, who was honored as a national Sports
Ethics Fellow last year. "We want to acknowledge
and reward positive ethical behavior by student-athletes
while stressing the importance of these attributes to
the individuals that attend our contests."
The conference selected "Competing with Honor and
Integrity" as its sportsmanship slogan. Empire
8 has developed a logo which will be incorporated onto
large banners that will be posted at the site of play
for all of its member institutions. The logo will also
appear on the conference website, member websites, game
flyers, media guides and other printed material.
The Empire 8 Sportsperson of the Week program, which
debuts January 11th, will identify and reward one student-athlete
from each of its member institutions on a weekly basis
who has distinguished himself or herself through exemplary
sporting behavior on and off the field of play. Those
individuals will be honored on the conference website,
on the member's website, the honorees' campus newspaper,
and will be promoted in the local media. Each honoree
will also be presented publicly with a t-shirt donning
the new sportsmanship logo before the start of their
next home contest.
At the end of the academic year the Empire 8 will also
honor one of its institutions as the "Sportsmanship
Member of Distinction." This will be awarded to
the conference member that was most proactive in educating
its student-athletes and staff on sporting behavior
and created innovative educational programs. It will
also consider institutional averages from the conference's
widely acclaimed conduct foul program.
The program also entails a revision of the conference's
website (www.empire8.com) to include various issues
relative to positive sportsmanship including commentary,
information on the conference's various sportsmanship
policies and news from around the nation regarding positive
sportsmanship and programs among other topics.
This initiative is just the latest in a long-line of
progressive sportsmanship initiatives introduced by
Empire 8 over the past few years. The most widely noted
program is its conduct foul initiative that tracks fouls
or infractions that are deemed to be unsporting or unethical
by a sport's playing rules. The program started in the
Empire 8 conference in 2002 and was expanded in January
2003. Last fall Mitrano implemented the program across
all of Division III. The NCAA, in conjunction with Mitrano,
is now piloting the program in Division's I and II.
Empire 8 also created an ejection policy in 2003 and
recently created a set of best practices for game and
crowd management. In addition, Commissioner Mitrano,
along with the chair of the Empire 8 Faculty Athletic
Representatives, Mike Gibbons (chair of the St. John
Fisher College Sports Studies Department), is currently
conducting division-wide research regarding fan behavior
and institutional game management in an effort to identify
components of effective game management and crowd control
to ultimately define a list of best practices.
Empire 8 members are Alfred University, Elmira College,
Hartwick College, Ithaca College, Nazareth College,
Rochester Institute of Technology, St. John Fisher College
and Utica College. Norwich University (VT) and Springfield
College (MA) are affiliate members in the sport of football.