HENDERSONVILLE

New program in Hendersonville celebrates good sportsmanship, honors HHS football player

Amy Nixon
The Tennessean
Jameson Wharton is pictured with the Hendersonville Parks Board.

A new program in Hendersonville will recognize athletes, coaches and parents who demonstrate positivity and good sportsmanship on the court and field.

The Parks and Recreation department’s “Honor the Game” program, initiated last month, first honored Jameson Wharton, a sophomore at Hendersonville High School who has been running a fundraiser to benefit the American Cancer Society since he was just 10 years old. Not only did he receive an award, but the city is naming an award after him.

The City of Hendersonville honored Jameson Wharton as the 2019 Sportsmanship Recipient.

Honor the Game

Parks Manager Dallas Long said one of the city’s volunteer coaches, Thom Golden, approached him in February with the idea of creating a program to recognize kids, coaches, parents, referees — anyone who represents good sportsmanship.

Last month, the parks staff and a board instituted the “Honor the Game” program.

The four principals of the program are: respect, heart, learn and play, according to the city's website. 

Golden, who has coached several sports for the city, said that while leagues have lots of ways to recognize talented players, there wasn’t really a way to honor athletes who were showing strength of character on the field. At the same time, he said, the atmosphere at games has become more negative over the years.

“I was noticing an overall decline in behavior and less of a commitment to sportsmanship on the field,” Golden said.

He had a recent conversation with a friend who helps coordinate umpires for a baseball league and realized the problem was larger than just among players and parents.

“He indicated it was getting a lot harder to find umpires to participate because of the abuse they get,” Golden said. “Hendersonville is like any other community. We care about each other. But we’re subject to the same societal pressures (to win) as everyone else. That really bothered me on a deep level, and I reached out to Dallas and (Parks and Recreation Director) Andy Gilley to talk about a variety of different ways to try to change the culture.”

Golden said the program will eventually provide literature and training opportunities to coaches and parents on how to promote sportsmanship from the stands.

“When I ask people why they play youth sports, the No. 1 reason is that it’s fun,” he said. “When I ask why young people decide to quit, they say it’s not fun anymore. A huge percentage of young people playing youth sports – 70% of young people – are quitting by age 13. We want to create an environment that promotes (sportsmanship) and encourages each other to respect the rules of the game.”

Long said the goal is for each league to create its own program. The leagues can then recognize players in any capacity they wish — be it from each game, each week, or each season. They can then nominate or submit the individuals to the parks department. At the end of the spring and fall seasons, the parks department will recognize each individual that was nominated.

A newly formed committee will then go through all the nominations from the year and recognize two individuals as Jameson Wharton Scholarship Award Winners.

Jameson Wharton give a speech before the Parks Board.

James Wharton and Football for the Cure

“Jameson is a really cool kid,” said Long. “The award will recognize those who have gone above and beyond to show the qualities that Jameson has.”

When Wharton was just 10 years old, his aunt died of cancer. Shortly thereafter, he decided to start a fundraiser to support the American Cancer Society.

“I had multiple people in my family and friends who were affected by cancer,” he said.

Wharton, who has hopes to study either physical health and science or astrophysics after high school, said it was an honor to be recognized by the city.

“It’s really just crazy that something like that happened from something I started when I was 10,” he said, adding that he drew his first plans for the fundraiser on paper plates in his grandmother’s kitchen.

This year’s Football for the Cure charity game will take place from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. Oct. 20 at Drake’s Creek Park in Hendersonville.

Participants can sign up on the organization’s Facebook page, or simply show up. It costs $5 to enter, and anyone between the ages of 5 through seniors in high school are encouraged to participate in the flag football games.

When asked what advice he would give to young athletes, Wharton, who thanked his mother for being so supportive of him, said, “I would tell them to keep God first and just try to be nice to everybody, no matter what.”

Ultimately, Golden said the goal of the program is for parents who are considering youth sports for their children to know they’ll have a positive experience in Hendersonville.

“We want them to look at Hendersonville and say ‘we know we’re going to get a great experience there,’” he said. “We want to challenge kids, to teach them to compete, but to enjoy it … we want to as a community change that culture and encourage a positive culture.”

Participants in last year's Football for the Cure event pose for a photo.

Find out more

For more information about Honor the Game, visit the city's website at https://www.hvilletn.org/departments/parks/honor-the-game-sportsmanship.

For more information about Football for the Cure, visit https://www.facebook.com/groups/321791187993304/.

Regional Editor Amy Nixon can be reached at 615-946-7549 or anixon@gannett.com.