| Sport is widely believed to provide sportsmanship, role models, aid in socialization, and discourage misconduct and violence (Heitzeg, 1996): However, incidents of misconduct and violence in the competitive sport environment appear to be increasing. This study was designed to investigate New Mexico high school sports officials' perceptions of: (a) misconduct, (b) legal aspects, (c) modeling, and (d) leaderships' role in promoting sportsmanship in competitive sport environment.; The findings indicate that spectator on official verbal and non-verbal misconduct was a major concern. Furthermore, athlete on athlete was a major concern in physical misconduct. Although New Mexico sports officials' concerns were above average in the legal aspects section, it is possible that these concerns have been properly addressed with the passage of New Mexico's sport violence law during this study. The variable of greatest concern was modeling of professional athletes.; The population for the study was adult members of the New Mexico Officials' Association who officiate high school football, basketball, soccer, and baseball. One thousand, one hundred sports officials were mailed self-administered Sport Officials' Surveys (SOS). Four hundred sixty two were completed resulting in a 42% return. The population was multicultural and included both genders.; Misconduct, legal aspects, modeling, leadership, and sports officials' experiences were analyzed using descriptive statistics. An ANOVA was conducted on the means of sports officials' perceptions of conduct between football, basketball, soccer, and baseball. Although there was no significant difference, the mean of each sport was above the norm. A Pearson product moment correlation was used to determine if a linear relationship existed between years of officiating experience and officials' perceptions of conduct in each of the sports. Results indicated that only the sport of basketball had a significant relationship. The relationship was positive.; One of the most important findings was that 85.7% of New Mexico high school sports officials indicated they would seriously consider terminating their officiating services should they perceive the competitive athletic environment worsening. Coaches, athletic directors, school administrators, and the New Mexico Officials Association can use these results to improve the competitive athletic environment. |
