The Skip Prosser Award recognizes winning with integrity

HE SET A HIGH STANDARD

April 5, 2008

Skip Prosser set a pretty high standard as a human being.

The passing of Skip Prosser last summer didn’t get nearly the attention of baseball’s homerun chase, the NBA gambling questions or the NFL’s incident with dogs. Questionable character and brutal negativity will always get more attention then good people with good stories.

That is what Skip Prosser was -- A good person.

And that is what the Skip Prosser Man of the Year is all about.

Notre Dame’s Mike Brey is recipient of the inaugural award, which will be presented annually at the Final Four, to the coach that best upholds the standards of the coaching profession.

In other words -- Winning without cheating.

Imagine an award that actually rewards good character -- More importantly an award that does not recognize those of questionable or poor character.

Questionable character. Nobody wants to touch it, but let’s be honest. The game has more then it’s share of questionable characters.

It’s like any business, and college basketball is certainly big business, but corporations don’t hand hardware to CEOs that show compassion for their fellow man. They just want the stock to rise.

That’s what makes this one of those really unique awards because the standards for the award are high. Winning is part of the criteria for being eligible, but it goes well beyond the victories.

As the press release stated -- Winning with Integrity. Now that's novel concept.

But even more important is that the award is without the fan fair.

Skip Prosser’s accomplishments on the court were impressive, but they went unnoticed by most casual fans due in large part to Prosser’s nature. In a time when self-promotion is as common as the three-point shot, Prosser would always deflect attention.

If you wanted to talk about the 1979 Pittsburgh Pirates “We are Family” team, he’d talk for hours. If you wanted to talk about Skip Prosser, he would speak at length about Jeff Battle or Dino Gaudio, his longtime assistants and friends.

Skip Prosser didn’t win 300 games (291). He didn’t win a National Championship or take a team to the Final 4. He didn’t establish any new standards in coaching, but he set a pretty high standard as a human being and never believed that was worthy of any attention. As he saw it -- That is just what you are supposed to do.

And the award presentation is handled in much the same fashion. Coach Brey even talked about, after being informed he was to receive the award.

“I love the fact that it’s done without all the attention,” he said. “That is not what Skip was about. Next year I want to be on hand to shake the hand of the next recipient and then we can all sit down and share stories about Skip. That’s what this award should be about.”

Good call coach.

Matt Drake is a senior writer for collegeinsider.com. EMAIL MATT