Shaking Up Sports

A hand reaches out to the opposition. With a firm but friendly grip, an athlete gives the opposing team respect. There will be no surprises because there is respect from both teams. There is no ego, only the drive to win. This is the premise of the Handshake Challenge.

  

John-Laffnie (JL) de Jager is a former professional tennis player, current coach of many professional players in the world and coach of the World Team Tennis Springfield Lasers tennis team. De Jager approaches coaching with the life of the player in mind. This mindset prompted de Jager to start the Handshake Challenge in his home country of South Africa.

   

“First, the most important thing is to teach my players to be champions in life so to be a champion person,” de Jager said. “For me it’s about respect, always respecting your opponent.”

  

To participate in the Handshake Challenge, teams of any sport shake hands before they begin their game or match. A pledge is read to share the importance of sportsmanship and how the challenge shows respect. Many sports shake hands after playing, but de Jager wants to see players establish respect before they play. De Jager compares it to shaking hands in everyday parts of life.

  

“When you go for lunch, when you go for dinner, when you go to visit people, everybody shakes hands and says hello beforehand, but we don’t do it in sport. We do it afterwards,” de Jager said.

  

De Jager believes that there are three main advantages to participating in the Handshake Challenge, and it is all about respect.

  

“If I have respect for you, ultimately I have respect for myself, and I’m never surprised when you play well when I respect you,” de Jager said. “Secondly is that I want to challenge you to be at your best. I don’t want to intimidate you when you’re weak and then beat you. I want to beat you when you’re at your best. And then thirdly is let’s play tough and hard, but let’s play fair.”

  

The challenge started in South Africa with rugby because of the physicality of the sport. Now, de Jager’s goal is to take the challenge all over the world and to every sport. Sherif Abohabaga, graduated college tennis player from Southwest Baptist University and highly ranked tennis player in Africa, was a substitute for the Lasers this past season. He knows the benefit of the challenge for more than only sports, and he hopes de Jager is able to carry out his goal.

  

“I would like JL [to] take this thing really as far as he can because I am pretty sure it is going to help a lot of people,” Abohabaga said. “It’s not only in tennis. Just in general, having a bad day, going and shaking hands with somebody, tell them everything will be great, you know it can change lives just by saying that.”

  

At the first assembly of the year, de Jager came to speak about the Handshake Challenge and overcoming obstacles in life. He challenged Glendale to become the first high school in the United States to pledge the Handshake Challenge. Mitch Pycior, Glendale Athletic Director, is optimistic about possible outcomes of de Jager’s visit at the school. Pycior is leaving the decision to participate in the Handshake Challenge up to the coaches of Glendale sports.

 

“Whether or not we ever become a school that is fully engaged in the Handshake Challenge throughout our programs, the attention that it brought to this topic was significant,” Pycior said.

  

Although there has yet to be an official pledge of the Handshake Challenge at Glendale, many sports have their captains shake hands with the opposing team captains before they play. Girls tennis put a focus on shaking hands before their matches with their individual opponents. According to Sydney Johnson, senior, the next step is to engage the entire team.

  

“Our coach, Penticuff, he kind of explained on our first match what the Handshake Challenge was to our team,” Johnson said. “He told us all to go out onto our courts and do the Handshake Challenge, but we would be open to explaining it to the other team. I think that would be a good step for our team as a whole.”

  

There are other ways Glendale puts a focus on sportsmanship. In wrestling, Coach Bud Donnell teaches his athletes how to be good sportsmen after competing.

  

“We really preach sportsmanship. You know, everyone loses, so we need to teach it’s okay to lose and how to respond to it,” Donnell said.

  

Coach Jeff Rogers of Glendale soccer agrees that it is very important to act appropriately after a game, especially a tough loss.

  

“To me, if you want true sportsmanship, it’s after a contest because it’s easy before a game because everybody’s happy before a game,” Rogers said. “After a game, somebody’s not going to be happy, and that’s when your true character and your integrity is going to shine.”

  

In response to any opposition to the Handshake Challenge, de Jager stresses that sportsmen need to be the bigger people in order to play a fair game. When players shake hands, they are telling their opponents that they support them. Some people see this as a weakness, but de Jager says that the weakness comes from believing a handshake will influence the outcome of the event.

  

“What do you do on a daily basis to make people around you feel better? Yeah, you can make your opponent feel better, why not?” de Jager said. “You’re insecure if you don’t want to make him feel better because it means that you feel threatened. And what people don’t understand is when you shake somebody’s hand before a match and you make eye contact, that’s actually intimidating.”

  

At Glendale, sportsmanship will continue to be an important part of athletics. Pycior hopes that Glendale becomes known for developing great players with great attitudes.

  

“I just see it becoming more about who we are,” Pycior said. “I mean that would be my ultimate goal is that people, among being good athletic programs, people know us for our good sportsmanship.”

  

Be on the lookout for Glendale athletics supporting the Handshake Challenge. If any sports would like to participate, they can learn more about the challenge on the Respect in Sport facebook page. Information and example videos can also be accessed through de Jager’s various social media accounts under his full name: John-Laffnie de Jager. De Jager asks that participating programs in the Handshake Challenge create a video explaining who they are, why they participated and add in a clip of them shaking hands with their opponents. This video can be posted to any social media with #handshakechallenge and de Jager’s account tagged.