The BHS boys basketball team recently went to state, and bringing home fourth place is not the only thing that was brought back from the tournament. Because of the behavior at the state tournament, Baldwin qualified for a sportsmanship award in the 4A class. There is a specific way people at the tournament pick schools or students for sportsmanship awards.
“There are selected members that have nothing to do with basically any of the teams,” KSHSAA rep Ginny Honomichl said. “They are selected to be there watching how the coaches behave, how the players behave, how the cheerleaders behave. They watch all the sportsmanship displayed by the teams then basically they give out these certificates for good sportsmanship.”
So many people in our school and community have thoughts and feelings about the award.
“I love that our school was recognized,” former Baldwin teacher Erika Bench said. “Not only for our athletic ability, but also for our sportsmanship. Good sportsmanship is easy to overlook but really creates a respectful game atmosphere for players and referees. I love that Baldwin is being honored for the positive culture and class they bring to tournaments.”
Even people outside our school and community recognized Baldwin’s sportsmanship.
“So in the last game of the tournament,” assistant principal Kelli Haeffner said. “The security guard, who had been a security guard for our team the entire tournament came up to me and just wanted me to know from his perspective as well as the other security guards at the state tournament that he wanted to commend our school specifically for our behavior, our student section specifically their behavior during the game and out of all the teams and crowds and student sections that had been at the games the security team had agreed that our student section was deserving of the best student section and from my perspective as an assistant principal that made me very proud because it tells us that we’re as a school doing good work, we have a positive culture we make it fun.
BHS administration also takes pride in the school’s great behavior.
“I’m super proud of our student section,” Haeffner said. “In general after every game we were cleaning up after ourselves we were taking pride in the way that we found it and the way we were leaving the student section so it was overall a really good trip.”