The goal was to promote the growth of an ethical environment in which sports may take place. Josephson and his allies are not Utopians; they don’t foresee a game in which batters implore umpires to call an outside-corner strike or one in which a football lineman pleads with a referee to penalize him for an unseen holding. They do, however, challenge coaches, administrators and officials to establish a culture that discourages players from breaking or even bending rules to gain an advantage either on the field or in the tangled recruiting and eligibility arenas.

Under Josephson’s steerage, the conference sought to establish comprehensive guidelines that encourage all members of the athletic community to give ethical behavior and character development a place at the table at least equal to that of the pursuit of victory. The conference’s keystone document, the Arizona Accord, states that its goal is “to encourage greater emphasis on the ethical and character-building aspects of athletic competition.” The words “win” or “victory” do not appear in the body of the Accord.

Experienced officials may be rolling their eyes, picturing a feel-good conference that produced an idealistic communiqué that will be discarded the first time the athletic director at “Colossal State University” gets an earful from an angry donor after the team plummets to second in the national rankings. The Accord’s motto is “Pursuing Victory with Honor,” but if there is one indisputable truth in America’s sports culture today, it is that honor is nice, but victory is better.

“If we’re successful with the Arizona Accord there will be more coaches who start teaching their players to play ethically,” says Josephson. “There are going to be more parents who expect the game to be played that way. There are going to be more people who just see the game in a different light.”

Precedents for ethical, self-regulating behavior in sports do exist.

“In golf, you are expected to self-report,” notes Josephson. “Most people play tennis without referees, so as a result the tradition evolved the same as golf. An honorable golfer or tennis player will make a call against himself. (Officials) need to understand both the rules and the traditions. Each game has a penumbra of rules that are the traditions of the game. Rules define several things. They not only define what is fair, they really define what the game prizes or honors. Boxing prizes brute force. That’s the nature of the game. Knock a person out. But it doesn’t allow you to hit below the belt, so it still has rules.”