WPIAL Announces 26th Annual Sportsmanship Award Winners

Wednesday, October 5, 2022

Pittsburgh, Pa. – The Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic League (WPIAL) is proud to announce the winning schools of its annual Sportsmanship Award, with five garnering the accolades in its 26th year of existence. Beaver, Hampton, Ligonier Valley, Penn-Trafford, and Saint Joseph were all named winners for the 2021-22 academic year.

Three of the five schools have previously received the WPIAL Sportsmanship Award, with Beaver and Ligonier Valley becoming the 68th and 69th different schools to collect the honor. This is Hampton’s seventh award, and the second for both Penn-Trafford and Saint Joseph.

Hampton has won all seven of its WPIAL Sportsmanship Awards in a 14-year span, which moved the Talbots into a three-way tie with North Hills and South Fayette for the most in league history. This marks three consecutive years in which Hampton was named a recipient, as it previously won in 2008-09, 2009-10, 2011-12, 2017-18, 2019-20, and 2020-21.

Penn-Trafford’s second WPIAL Sportsmanship Award comes 23 years after its first, when it received the honor in 1998-99 – the third year of the program. Saint Joseph previously earned the plaudits for the 2013-14 academic year.

LINK: WPIAL Sportsmanship Award History

In 1997, the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association (PIAA) and WPIAL launched the program entitled “SPORTSMANSHIP: The Only Missing Piece is You”. The purpose of the program is to promote sportsmanship in the schools and to reward those schools that best demonstrate the elements of good sportsmanship.

The selection process was based on the fall, winter, and spring seasons of the 2021-22 school year. Schools were eligible to be nominated through either a self-assessment, by another school, or by an officials’ chapter. The WPIAL Sportsmanship Award Committee then met to discuss the nominees, with a maximum of five schools eligible to be honored for their good sportsmanship.

Winning schools are bestowed with a “SPORTSMANSHIP: The Only Missing Piece is You” 4×6 banner, a PIAA Board of Directors resolution acknowledging their selection, and a distinctive paperweight with the miniature banner embedded inside. The five winning schools will be recognized during the WPIAL Sportsmanship Summit, which will be held at the Heinz History Center and Sports Museum on Wednesday, Nov. 16.

This is the second straight year in which there were five recipients of the WPIAL Sportsmanship Award. Derry, Hampton, Laurel, Moon, and Upper St. Clair were the winners for the 2020-21 academic year.

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