Gilman football coach Biff Poggi has been awarded a Positive Coaching Alliance Double-Goal Coach Award, a national award honoring coaches who have made positive impacts on their young charges that carries beyond the athletics arena.

Poggi is one of 20 winners announced Tuesday who received $250 and a trophy as well as recognition for a being positive coaching role model. The award, according to a news release, is "named for coaches whose first goal is winning and whose second, more important goal is teaching life lessons through sports."

Poggi was honored for making "Building Men for Others," a program he and former Baltimore Colt Joe Ehrmann founded about 15 years ago before Poggi was the head football coach, part of the Greyhounds' football success. Stressing every day values, the coaches spend time with the players discussing such societal issues as dating, race relations and social injustice.

In guiding the Greyhounds, who finished 7-2 last fall behind Calvert Hall in the MIAA A Conference race, to nine championships in 14 years, Poggi has received his share of accolades but said this award, which he also credits to his assistant coaches, school administration and the parents, is different.

"Of the awards that I have received, I would say this is the ultimate," Poggi said.

"You really do need to know that you have the support of the school to coach this way, because in the sports world today if you put together a series of 5-5 seasons and it comes out that you're not the traditional kind of whipper and driver of the program, you could lose your job. It's really important to know that you could put together a series of those kinds of seasons and you have the support of the school as long as you're teaching the right things."

The assistant coaches have to be partners in teaching those lessons, he said, because they do much of the direct work on the field with the players and the parents have to support a coaching philosophy that stresses that there's more to athletics than winning. Poggi said he's been fortunate to have great success at Gilman, which makes it easier for everyone to buy into his philosophy.

Too many times winning at all cost is stressed over values that used to be taught every day along with how to make a tackle or throw a spiral, Poggi said.

"It’s just absolutely out of control and nobody is teaching the things that used to be taught almost every day in every program 50 years ago: respect for your opponent, competition’s really with yourself not with other people. These things that [former UCLA men's basketball coach] John Wooden taught -- how to respect all people, how to treat people, how to carry yourself, what does integrity look like, telling the truth and, for boys, how do you treat a young girl when you go on a date with her. These are things that kids need to talk about. Racism. Social injustice. These are things we spend a lot of time talking about and these things used to be incorporated into the co-curricular nature of athletics and now they're not.

"I think it shows up in our society. To me, atheltics is the greatest thing if it’s done right. It’s also one of the biggest evils if it’s done wrong."

Poggi and the 19 other winners were chosen from among 50 finalists from across the country.

"Biff wins on the scoreboard and more importantly, he wins by creating a positive character-building sports experience for youth athletes," Jim Thompson, PCA's founder and executive director said in a news release. "Ultimately, the youth athletes Biff coaches are the real winners, and as those athletes become tomorrow's leaders, our society wins as a whole."

Southern cross country coach Douglas Ellmore was also nominated for the award sponsored by the PCA and Liberty Mutual.

The Positive Coaching Alliance is a non-profit organization based at Stanford University in California, which aims “to transform the culture of youth sports to give all young athletes the opportunity for a positive, character-building experience,” according to its web site.