I’m an optimist. I like to think that things can and will get better. In this country, we abolished slavery and child labor and we don’t think it’s acceptable for men to beat their wives. A recent poll said that a majority of the nation would accept a woman president. Some day, we’ll break our dependence on oil, if only because we won’t have a choice.

But on the issue of sportsmanship, I find it impossible to find any indication of improvement. I hate to get into the when-I-was-a-kid mode, but I do remember when it was considered abominably poor sportsmanship to yell while an opponent was taking a foul shot. And celebrating the wonderfulness of yourself after a good play in any sport would get you a seat on the bench — maybe permanently.

We like to fulminate on why this is, and we end up in the streets, where today’s athletes form their ideas about respect — totally self-centered — and acceptable behavior — ditto.

I don’t buy it.

Kids have been coming from the streets and the lower-income brackets of society into sports from the beginnings of the games. It’s only in the past generation that poor sportsmanship has not just been tolerated but also celebrated.

I’d rather blame the grown-ups than the kids. Too many parents and coaches believe in winning at all costs. Too many sports anchors and highlight shows — and it’s not just SportsCenter — devote all their tape to outrageous play rather than good play. You don’t make the show by making good passes and setting picks. You make it by throwing one down in somebody’s face, hanging on the rim and crowing it to the cameras.

It doesn’t have to be that way. Bob Hurley, father of Bobby, has been coaching basketball at St. Anthony High School in Jersey City for more than 30 years. It’s an inner-city school, and the kids who go there are subjected to all the ravages of poverty and drugs and crime and single-parent families. But they are total gentlemen on the court and in life because Hurley demands that they be. He doesn’t care if you’re the number one talent in the country; if you break the rules, you’re gone.

Unfortunately, there are too few Hurleys because the people who hire coaches don’t care about character as much as they care about winning. It’s true at the pro level just as it is in some grade-school programs.

So, as ignored as national sportsmanship day is, it’s good to keep it around and keep talking about it. Maybe one year, if the folks at the Institute for International Sport can beef up their P.R. efforts, one league or one conference will decide to try actually practicing good sportsmanship on that one day. And if it works, they might even try it for two days or a week, just to see what it’s all about.

Who knows? They may find they like it.

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