As home of the 11-time World Series Champion Cardinals, Stanley Cup Champion Blues, and host of three NCAA Final Fours, St. Louis is a great sports city. Thanks to the Musial Awards, it holds a far more meaningful title: home of the best sports. This world-class event gives St. Louis a powerful opportunity to enhance its image and impact across the country and around the world.
Previously known as the National Sportsmanship Awards, the Musials honor shining examples of integrity, selflessness, dignity, humility, generosity, and class—traits embodied on and off the field by Baseball Hall of Famer Stan Musial.
Considered one of the greatest baseball players in history, he played 22 seasons with the St. Louis Cardinals and finished his career with 3,630 hits, three MVP awards, and three World Series titles. By personifying the awards in a man who held all the virtues that the event celebrates, we have a face, a vocabulary, and a shorthand for all that’s right in sport.
Produced by the St. Louis Sports Commission and the National Sportsmanship Foundation, the Musials are presented in historic Stifel Theatre and broadcast to a national audience. The honorees have been as famous as Arnold Palmer, Joe Torre, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, or broadcaster Ernie Johnson.
They have been as anonymous as two college softball players carrying an injured opponent around the bases so she could record her first-ever home run.
They have been as young as a 9-year-old goalie offering his rival a goalkeeping lesson between periods. They have been as old as a 99-year-old nun, praying with the Loyola University basketball team and casting her own warm glow off the bright spotlight of a Final Four.
Whether watching in person or on television, viewers are reminded that these athletes perform physical feats that the rest of us can only dream of. But behind the state championships and world records and MVP awards, they are only human, like the rest of us.
Through their acts of character and integrity, honorees and audience share the common bond. We may not be able to replicate their athletic achievements, but we can replicate their humanity.
The Musials serve as a springboard for spreading character, integrity, and sportsmanship beyond sport to society.
The Sports Commission and National Sportsmanship Foundation foster these values year-round through the Musial Moments program and Good Sport Pledge campaign as vehicles to spread the values of Stan Musial and the honorees and to empower people to lead healthier, happier lives through the values of sportsmanship.
The honorees, then, serve as example and inspiration to one and all. They offer hope that given a difficult situation, each of us will rise to the occasion.
When we cheer for their humility, honesty, or generosity, we’re really encouraging one another—and more importantly, ourselves—to do the same. To create our own Musial Moment.
