Dan Cardone is a bona fide member of a club that includes cyclist Lance Armstrong, Penn State football coach Joe Paterno and soccer star Mia Hamm.

Mr. Cardone, athletic and activities director at North Hills School District, joined the group March 2, when he was named a 2010 Sports Ethics Fellow by the Institute for International Sport and the Positive Coaching Alliance at Stanford University.

"You look at the company I'm keeping and it's an honor," said Mr. Cardone of Ross. "I've always felt respect and fair play are important parts of sports, so this means a lot to me."

Mr. Cardone was one of 18 individuals and two organizations to receive this honor, announced on National Sportsmanship Day. Fellows are recognized for demonstrating admirable leadership in the areas of fair play and sportsmanship, according to the alliance. Mr. Armstrong, Mr. Paterno and Ms. Hamm were all past honorees, as were Pittsburgh Penguins coach Dan Bylsma and former basketball star turned NBA coach Phil Jackson.

Mr. Cardone, who grew up playing sports at Hampton High School and later played football at Grove City College, began his career as a social studies teacher. He spent 13 years teaching at two of Pittsburgh's Catholic high schools, North Catholic and Seton-LaSalle, then taught at Indiana High School in Indiana, Pa., for four years.

During those teaching years, however, he spent many after-school hours teaching student athletes the fundamentals of sports such as football, baseball and basketball, and how to be a class act on and off the field.

"I think high school sports is the last bastion of sports, it's pure, it's amateur, and the kids are still in the molding stage," he said. "In the past, we would name someone a team captain but what would we do beyond that? I wanted to be proactive and say, 'Here's how you act. Here's how you behave. Here's how you lead.'

"We try to teach the kids that, years from now, the score of the game really isn't going to matter, it's how they acted. You want people to remember them as a class act."

In 1992, when North Hills was looking for an athletic director, he decided to step out of the classroom and focus on athletics.

There, he has worried less about the wins and losses of district teams and more about making sure student athletes are taught respect for all.

To that end, he initiated the first WPIAL Sportsmanship Summit, held in November and attended by more than 600 student athletes and athletic administrators.

He founded the Student Athlete Leadership Academy, which since 2005 has brought together more than 250 athletes from Western Pennsylvania for training in leadership and sportsmanship on an annual basis.

In 2006, he was named one of the top athletic administrators in the nation by the National Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association. He also developed a Code of Conduct for Spectators that was adopted by the Northern Area Athletic Directors Association Schools.

In 2009, Mr. Cardone was one of five people nationwide to be named national director for National Sportsmanship Day.

While determining the success of a team on the field or court is as simple as looking at the scoreboard, measuring the sportsmanship of student athletes isn't as easy.

Mr. Cardone, however, points to two signs that students participating in the district's 42 interscholastic offerings are gracious competitors:

The district was named an All-American Sportsmanship School by the Institute for International Sport in 2006. And seven of the past eight years the district has been named the winner of the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association's statewide sportsmanship award.

"It's nice and it says something about what we are doing at North Hills," he said. "But you know, I want to win [the association's statewide sportsmanship award] again next year -- and every year."

When he's not at his job, Mr. Cardone enjoys writing. While much of his writing has focused on the importance of developing character in sport, he has branched out to another love -- Italy and its food.

For two articles published in Italian Cooking and Living magazine, he wrote about his Italian family and about the town of Lucca, in the Tuscany region of Italy. He fell in love with the town's medieval and Renaissance architecture and fine food during a visit.

"It's such a unique place and it's beautiful," he said. "The food is wonderful and made with simple, fresh ingredients. There's nothing like fresh basil and fresh tomatoes. ... It was nice to share my experience with others by writing about it."

While writing is an interest, Mr. Cardone said he feels lucky to be able to have the job he does.

"I really think your avocation can become your vocation," he said. "It's a blessing for someone who loves sports like I do to be able to do this."

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