Royal High School was recently honored with the California Interscholastic Federation's Champion for Character award.

The award is part of the CIF's 'Pursuing Victory with Honor,' a six-year-old program which aims to encourage schools, coaches and student-athletes to enforce the rules of conduct for sports and to promote good sportsmanship and ethical behavior.

"To boost this effort, we decided we should reward schools and individuals that exemplify this behavior. We want to be able to point to these schools and say, 'These are examples of the schools we want to see,'" said Dr. James Staunton, the Commissioner of the CIF's Southern Section.

Nominees are taken from the nine separate subsections of the CIF's Southern Division. Only eight awards were given this year since two subsections failed to provide any nominees. The northern section, of which Royal High School is a part, received two awards.

According to CIF officials, Royal High School stood out because of its lack of disruptions and constant efforts to increase sportsmanship.

"They have run a number of campaigns on campus to promote sportsmanship," Staunton said. "They are welcoming to people from other schools, put up posters to increase cheer, they prevent negative behavior from taking place in the crowd and they're successful athletically."

Athletes, their parents and coaches are all required to sign contracts promising to adhere to the goals set forth by the CIF's 'Pursuing Victory with Honor' program.

"We want them to be good sports and realize that winning is not the only thing, it's how you play the game. We also expect the parents to be good spectators, not boo the officials and behave in an appropriate manner," said Jim Wilber, athletic director at Royal.

RHS had only one student redcarded during a soccer match- which is a common occurrence in the sport-according to Staunton. In addition, no Highlander coaches were disciplined last year.

"I also think it's great that 95 percent of the coaches at Royal are also teachers. They know how to instill quality behavior into our students and show them how to behave responsibly at sporting events," Wilber said.

Student-athletes at Royal have gone above and beyond to help members of their community. According to staff, they visit elementary students and invite them to a game to show them the importance of sportsmanship and to encourage their involvement in athletics. For the past four years, student-athletes at Royal have also adopted soldiers and platoons stationed in Iraq. "It happened that we had some

students that graduated from Royal and were stationed over there. When they came back to visit, we became aware of the situation and decided to help," Wilber said.

The adopted soldiers are sent care packages that contain items such as DVDs, CDs and personal toiletries.

"I think that their school leadership has done a great job and that they should be recognized for that," Staunton said. "The previous administration and this one have been very assertive in getting this job done and we're very proud of that."

While onthefield accomplishments are great, Wilbur said, this is one award the school and its athletes should be very proud of.

"So often we look at the wins and loses and it's really nice to get some recognition for what we do off the field to promote good citizenship," Wilber said. "If you do the right thing, your kids will perform on campus and off and on and off the court. It's because of our kids and our coaches that we are receiving this award."