Coaches, players and parents need to operate under the same ethical code.

I met the lawyer, father to one of my former youth players, as we were about to go on jury duty in D.C. Superior Court. After exchanging courtesies, I asked, "How is your son doing in soccer?" "Fine," came the response, "he's scoring a lot of goals."

Having known the boy as a skillful passer of the ball rather than a goal scorer, I expressed some surprise. "He's learned how to go down in the box to draw penalty kicks," continued the father, "he's really good at it."

My questions flowed faster than the father could reply: "And you're proud of that? Is that what we want to teach our players? As an attorney, would you teach young lawyers unethical behavior?" The father admitted that he hadn't thought of his son's playing in that light and quickly moved away to join the jury pool.

The story reminds me of jazz-great Louie Armstrong, who, when asked what jazz is, replied, "If I have to define it for you, you won't get it." We can say the same about ethics: In its simplest form, the word connotes right versus wrong behavior, good over bad conduct, adherence to fairness and other standards of behavior and values related to respectful human conduct.

Codes of conduct

Every season, we see a rash of articles about sportsmanship in soccer, along with horror stories of coach and parent behavior and of parents who sue coaches for losing seasons. Youth sports seem to bring out the worst in many parents and coaches, accounting in large part of the 33 percent of kids who quit soccer by the age of 13. We counter with "codes of ethics" for parents, coaches, officials, players and even administrators.

The NSCAA has a Soccer Ethics Committee and occasionally publishes its code or guidelines in the Journal. Soccer America's Dan Woog, in his monthly "Youth Soccer Letter," regularly offers tips on ethical behavior for coaches, players, parents and officials which address ethical behavior.

We see more articles from parent coaches and soccer moms reporting on their youngsters' soccer teams, sideline behavior and lessons from their soccer experiences.

Silent sidelines

Spurred by the recent, well-publicized "Silent Sunday" of a suburban Cleveland youth soccer league, other areas have picked up on the idea of letting the players play without coach or parent instructions or yelling. In Arlington, just outside Washington, D.C., a league ordered all parents and coaches to remain silent during the games. The coaches felt frustrated and said they "want to coach and give kids directions." Parents volunteered "they are so young, they need coaching instruction to know what to do." The response of the players: "Great, we could make our own decisions and play."

By the way, that's the way most of the world learns soccer - self-governing and without adult supervision on the streets, playgrounds and beaches, with no one keeping score or league standings. That's the way I learned the game on the streets of Kensington in Philadelphia. We kicked kids out of our street soccer games for not playing by our "street rules." We experienced the three essentials for keeping youngsters in soccer - we had fun, we developed skills and we played within the rules.

Our increasingly competitive society seems to spill over to youth sports, prompting more concern for soccer ethics. Over the last decade, with the rapid growth of youth soccer across our country, hordes of non-soccer parents have come into soccer's ranks as coaches, officials or just plain spectators. Often, they bring concepts from baseball, football and basketball which they apply to soccer. Not having grown up in a soccer culture, they fail to grasp that soccer is a different type of game. We know that it is a game where players make decisions, where we discourage sideline instructions and where the dissent and baiting of officials, common to other sports, are punished.

Among the newcomers to our sport are many editors, writers and teachers who find lessons in youth soccer to write about. Many touch on ethical behavior in our game, seeking answers to abusive coaches who yell and overcoach and to the kinds of parents who have placed an excessive emphasis on competition above youth development and the spirit of the game.

Reflecting on our roles

In my experience as a player growing up with soccer and our Scottish father, we never talked about soccer ethics. We knew right from wrong, with my father's words to "play hard, but fair" always present in our thoughts on the field. Did I ever go after an opponent with excessive force in a tackle or wipe him out on a head ball? Sure, I played hard. Did I ever deliberately try to injure an opponent? No, there was always a concern for fairness, a great respect for our opponents and for the spirit of the game.

In my experience as a coach, have I ever pushed the laws to the limit, for example, substituting in the last few minutes while ahead by a goal and bringing out the player furthest from the bench? Sure. Have I ever cut a kid in public, taught the "professional foul" or "dives" to draw fouls, played an injured player, humiliated a player or bullied or berated a referee for a judgment call? No. The first is tactical and "gamesmanship" within the laws; the latter situations are unethical. And we should be challenged when we engage in such behavior.

In my experience as an official, have I thought about getting back at a coach for yelling at me? Sure. But have my calls ever followed through? I sure hope not. Fearful of dictating the game's outcome, have I ever waved "play on" with the game on the line and an obvious take-down in the penalty box, fearful of dictating the game's outcome? Have I leaned a bit in my calls toward the less aggressive team? Again, I hope not.

In my experience as a soccer parent, did I ever think a referee's call was wrong, affecting my kid's game? Sure. Nothing wrong with second-guessing an official. But did I yell at the referee, berate or question his or her eyesight or sanity in public? Did I ever offer instructions to my kid or publicly criticize the coach? No, as a coach and official, that?s not the way I want to be treated by parents. It shows a lack of respect for the players, the coach and the officials trying to do their best job. It shows a lack of respect for our game.

Ethical behavior in soccer goes beyond tips and codes of conduct, beyond guidelines for sideline behavior, beyond club courses and lectures on sportsmanship. Ethical behavior goes deeper. It deals with individual behavior, who we are as human beings, our character, what our values are and how we react to situations, particularly those that do not meet our expectations like losing a game, players making mistakes, having one's kid cut or dealing with adverse calls. It comes down to moral choices of right and wrong.

Coaches, players and parents cannot control winning and losing. They can, however, control their own behavior, their actions and their attitudes toward others in soccer. That's why it is so difficult to impart soccer ethics by codes, flyers, courses, lectures or exhortations. We obviously need these efforts, but the concept of soccer ethics, knowing right from wrong and making moral choices seems abstract. They are for other people, not us. The concept of soccer ethics only acquires meaning when our individual soccer behavior is called into question. Ethical behavior is the product of training, not reflection. As Aristotle stressed thousands of years ago in his "Ethics," you produce a good adult by habituating a good child to doing the right thing. We'll get good, ethical soccer people by habituating them to understand good and bad behavior.

Challenge bad behavior

So what can we do to ensure ethical behavior in soccer? We can start by praising and rewarding good behavior, while bringing attention to and confronting poor or unethical behavior. When we see a coach, player, official or parent engaged in unethical behavior, challenge them. Raise ethical questions, as I tried to do with my player?s father, the attorney. Make people in soccer think about their actions. Challenging unethical behavior, wherever we see it, should be part of our game. It should rank up there with education through coaching courses, sportsmanship seminars, team sportsmanship liaisons, codes and other handouts, journal and newsletter articles and contracts with players and parents.

As opposed to abstract concepts, integrity, industry and respect for the game and the people in it are the gyroscope which will help an individual player, coach, parent or official make consistent ethical decisions, on the field and in life. It's really not that hard a habit to embrace.

Soccer is an intense sport, and the low scoring leads to intense competition for the ball and minute-by-minute pressure situations. But winning and unbridled competitiveness should never take precedence over ethical behavior, sportsmanship, skill acquisition and players having fun and spectator enjoyment.

Success in a soccer game, even in a season, is transient. But the positive feelings and sheer joy that come from being associated with the world's game, from knowing that you behaved in a manner that brings credit to the game, can last a lifetime.

Editor's note: Len Oliver is the director of coaching for the Washingon, D.C. Stoddert Soccer League. He is also a member of the Virginia Youth Soccer Association state coaching staff. During his playing career he was an NSCAA All-America at Temple and played for the U.S. National Team.