The purpose of the study was to implement a Sport Education season designed to be mastery-involving and examine the degree of congruence between the objective measure of the presented climate with the students' perceptions of the saliency of this motivational climate. Twenty-one male high school students (mean age of 15.9 years) and one expert teacher participated in 12 lessons, each of 90 minutes' duration, of team handball taught using Sport Education. During each phase of the Sport Education season the TARGET motivational climate variables were coded by analyzing the lesson videotapes. Following each phase, students completed the "perceptions of teacher's emphasis on goals" questionnaire. Results showed a consistent student perception of a mastery climate across all phases of the season. The teacher was able to manipulate the predominantly performance-based task structure of practice style tasks and formal competition within the model to foster a mastery climate with an emphasis on mastery-based recognition and evaluation structures. The latter finding has important instructional implications for facilitating student motivation within the teaching of competitive sports in secondary physical education.