Wildcats become first three-time winners of HDN sportsmanship award

By barstoolfanatics on February 21, 2025 • ( Leave a comment )

Ray Hamill/HumboldtSports.com – The Wildcats receive their sportsmanship pennant at halftime of last weekend’s Dick Niclai boys basketball tournament at Lumberjack Arena.

By Ray Hamill — The Ferndale Wildcats and the Ferndale community continues to set the standard when it comes to sportsmanship in the H-DNL.

The smallest high school in the league was recently awarded a third H-DN sportsmanship award in three years for the manner in which the school’s athletes and fans conduct themselves at high school sporting events.

Some of the Ferndale student-athletes were on hand to receive the pennant at halftime of last week’s Dick Niclai boys tournament final at Lumberjack Arena.

The H-DN Sportsmanship Award is the brainchild of the Student Athlete Advisory Council, which initiated the awards at the start of the 2022/23 school year.

The award is handed out to one of the H-DNL’s 11 schools after each of the fall, winter and spring seasons and is based on input from three different groups — officials, coaches and school administrators.

The league also awards an annual sportsmanship banner for the school that shows the best sportsmanship over the course of all three seasons.

The Wildcats became the second honorees in the winter of 2022/23 and also won the award the following winter.

They have now won three of the nine sportsmanship award handed out.

Interestingly, seven of the nine awards have been won by Little 5 schools, with Northeast Prep, St. Bernard’s, South Fork and Hoopa each also receiving the honor once apiece.

Fortuna is the only Big 5 school to be honored, earning the accolade twice, in the fall of 2023 and for the overall 2023/24 school year.