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In those stories that include bullies who play on the school's football team, the usual story line is that the school's administration doesn't care.
Well, here's a real life story which is making national news for being different. Let's hope this story carries a lesson to other schools' coaches and administrators that there is a way to build character in sports, and that it's not all about winning the games.
Comments
Honestly, the school that I
Honestly, the school that I was in during HS/JRHS, had more people on the football team willing to pin bullies to the wall than be the bullies. Much higher proportion of rednecks, though :)
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
Different Jocks, different results!
Back in the dark ages, I played football and wrestled in high school.
The offensive football coach, was everybody's worst nightmare of a bullying gym teacher. The defensive coach, and wrestling coach, was a very good math teacher. The offense was treated like shit. The defensive was treated like responsible, soon to be adult boys. We, the defense, never gave up more than 7 points a game, but the offense never scored a point. The team had not won a game in living memory. Some said it was because the team wore school colors. I personally liked powder blue and pink, but most found it daunting, although the derision of the other team seemed to strengthen the teams resolve.
I was one of two white boys on the team. we were welcomed by the blacks as we showed that we were willing to carry our part of the load. I still talk with some of those men today. When I started the first high school SDS chapter to protest the Vietnam war, we had problems with right wing toughs beating up the weaker, and female protesters. When they heard about it, my fellow defensive line members and a few other team members turned out to protect those exercising their right of free speech.
This led to a lot of socializing between the two groups. Black/white friendships became more usual, and racial tensions at the school were reduced. All of this because of a really good coach.
Liz
It is good to see a coach and
It is good to see a coach and staff dealing with a serious matter. Too many bully's get away with stuff, it's even worse when their bullying leads to suicide.
The person who died could have one day been the scientist who invented a way to leave our solar system, the next president or even a world famous film maker.
Big hugs
Lizzie :)
Bailey's Angel
The Godmother :p
Character
"Basketball doesn't build character, it reveals it." - Anonymous (I'm sure there are similar quotes for every sport.)
Youth sports are expensive. A single season of soccer on an elite team can cost several thousand dollars per player. But just imagine how expensive those sports would be if the players had to pay for the stadiums and arenas they play in. Taxpayers are currently subsidizing youth sports under the guise of the "learning experience" derived by the players. In many instances that "learning experience" is dubious. Taxpayers should sue for fraudulent use of public funds.
Last fall our local girl's soccer high school team had to win one more game to qualify for state. The night before the game the star of the team called the coach and told her she couldn't play in the game because she had to practice with her Olympic Development Team. The girl already had the school record for most career goals AS A SOPHOMORE because they started her on varsity when she was in the seventh grade. Her school team had been heavily favored to win the state title, but without her they lost the qualifying game. This year that star and about fifteen others around our area did not play on their high school teams because their development team coach said it would not be good for their "development".
Coaches shouldn't have to read the story you linked to learn about character development. Character development should be a contractual issue and part of their annual review.
The school errored in allowing the girl to play on the varsity as seventh grader. Imagine the senior who didn't make varsity because someone from the elementary school wanted to play. Imagine the social awkwardness of a 18 year old woman playing with a 12-year old child.
Youth sports are a crock of poo. They could be soooo good and usually are soooooooo bad.
Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
"Youth sports are expensive"
You say youth sports are expensive, that for an elite team it costs thousands per player. Well most of that "thousands per player" goes to coach and staff salary, the next big expense is uniforms with names on them, etc. On an average high school team, the uniforms are 5 years old, and are already payed for, the coach is salaried (for teaching classes) and only gets a couple hundred PER YEAR extra for running the team, the field which is also used for other sports is maintained as part of the school grounds with no extra cost, the goals were made of PVC pipes and cheap netting by the coach in his spare time. The big expense is the gas it takes to go to away games. The avg. cost per player ranges from $25-$150 (my school in the 80's used $28).
For city youth sports the coaches are volunteers, uniforms are re-used, snacks are supplied by parents, gas/ transport supplied by parents, fields are part of parks & recreation and are used by everybody including pick-up games.
Those "elite teams" you spoke of are usually from "elite" private schools and the cost is covered by tuition not taxes.
While I can see that it can cost a couple hundred to participate in a youth sports, there is hard data showing that areas that DON'T have youth sports have higher levels of gang activity, which leads to higher crime levels. The cost per player is less than the costs in crime loss, police, jail, etc., so I think those taxpayers should be HAPPY to pay a small amount now, to increase safety later.
Both can be true at once, as well.
At my high school, the only sport that EVER mattered was basketball. Everything else?
Track had to pay for all their own clothing, as well as help pay for gas to go to events.
No tennis team.
Baseball reused the same uniforms every year, players had to buy their own cleats/gloves/etc.
No football team.
No soccer team.
Quiz Bowl (despite repeated rankings as one of the top 10 teams regardless of school size in the state) had coaching by volunteer, events were paid for BY THAT SAME VOLUNTEER COACH, and we had to pay for our own letterman jackets.
Basketball, though? Every team member was bought new shoes, a new uniform, and new warm-ups every year by the school. Their letterman jackets were furnished by the school. They had one of only two coaches the school actually paid.
The other paid coach was cheerleading, and they fell about midway between the categories. No individual uniforms -- those were reused -- and they had to furnish their own shoes, but their jackets and other additionals were covered by the school, including a set of warmups with their names.
It always annoyed me when the basketball players got all of that, but the school never seemed to have any money to fix instruments when they broke down in band. There were several times the band students all chipped in together to get one of our instruments repaired, the most galling being when we had to do that only to find out the next day that the school had decided to order a mascot costume for basketball games that cost three times what our repair bill was.
Melanie E.
Uhmmmm We've Had Different Experiences
I know a little about what I speak:
I was a four sport letter winner.
This is the first fall in THIRTY years that I do not have a child playing a school sport. Three of my children did go to private colleges, but they all went to public elementary and high schools.
A few years ago the school gave me an award for coaching over forty youth teams.
I've officiated football and basketball at the high school level.
I coached high school tennis.
I served on numerous sports boards. I know enough not to talk about the price of new uniforms. We found it more economical to buy new uniforms each year rather than run down the kids and parents. Uniforms are made in China and cost very little.
While you're right about a lot of money for elite teams going to coaches (I never once got paid) a HUGE expense for the teams are the tournament fees. They HAVE to play tournaments every weekend. Those teams have multiple new uniforms each year.
My children had great success from sports winning state honors and playing on into college, with the last one graduating a year ago as captain of her team. They also have scars that will last them for life from the abusive spectators and coaches. One of mt sons swears he'll never allow his daughter to play organized sports. He was an all-stater in soccer who could essily put down a two hand stuff. I vividly recall my one son receiving a forearm shiver in basketball from a sub who was obviously put into the game for that purpose. I also remember a parent telling her daughter to "take out" my daughter because a player on their team had been hurt and they wanted retribution.
You're welcome to your opinion, but I have to wonder when the last time was you saw a pickup game. I drive by our school twice a day and haven't seen one in years. I also wonder when the last time was you went to an inner city AAU basketball tournament. Do you really think those are "volunteer" coaches? Heck . . . a lot of the athletes are paid on those teams.
A friend of mine's son made the NBA. He still coaches AAU and has told me of what it takes now to land an elite player for your team. Things are sick and getting sicker by the day.
I'm happy if sports are still peachy keen in your area of the country, because in mine parents are getting arrested for beating up on coaches.
Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
As regards soccer, speaking
As regards soccer, speaking as someone who has refereed at the lower professional level and has been involved in US Soccer since I played as a child and youth...there isn't always this problem. Indeed, one of the clubs I worked for...doesn't charge any of their academy players a cent to play for them. Yes it is competitive and they take only the cream of the crop, but the players and their families don't have to foot the bill. Mostly the bill is footed by the club and their sponsors (there is a particular family here who used to own a major chain of grocery stores that invests their money into the club).
The one rule they have though is if you make academy, you are NOT allowed to play for your high school. Actually, that's something that VHSL and USSF are both putting into the bylaws now. The academy systems are to develop players who are expected to be able to play professionally, while high school players still focus on the possibility of playing in college.
I never had a problem with anything about being younger and playing up. I also never had a problem with girls playing on boys' teams, if they could handle it. Yes winning isn't everything, but some of the lessons I learned playing up in youth soccer (I was a 14 year old on a U19 team for instance) were how to handle victory and defeat graciously, how to go outside your comfort zone to build friendships and how to realize that hard work is necessary if you want to be successful.
Samirah M. Johnstone
Real Life Football Bullies
Back in the late 1950's I was a victim of continuous bullying by several star football players. One of them ended up being named 'Best Athlete'. They were untouchable. Their bullying was psychological, fortunately not physical. But I feared them just the same. I wanted to like them. I admired their talent. I hated them. I killed them in one of my novels several years ago. Do I feel better? Not really. I've often thought what would have happened had I acted on my hate. Fortunately, the means were not there, and the hate was not strong enough. But the damage was permanent, even more than 50 years later. Musetta said it best, "They were real assholes."
Portia
Sports kerflufles
In my local area there is a boy who has been forced to stop playing for his local (Lunenburg MA) Pewee Football team. The reason why? When he was in the 2nd grade he was advanced to a higher grade. So, while he is going to school with children older than him he continued to play football with boys his own age and size. Well it would appear that some annonimous jackass reported this boy to the local sports council because he was not playing sports in his GRADE catagory. So, because he is too smart he is being penalized for playing with others in his own physical ability.
Sports players can be a mixed bag.
But as was said here it's expensive so that makes it a shut out for a lot of kids and that added to the popularity thing is a lot of social power.
And we know what power can do.
Bailey Summers
I never experienced
bullying from any player on an organized school sports team. In fact, some of the players were friends of mine. I never played any organized sports however. Lack of ambition, I guess. Played LOTS of "pick-up" games with friends though. Granted, I come from a very small school system, but as far as I could see or remember, there was NO bullying by any players.
Granted also that I am a child of the 50s and 60s. The only bullying I ever experiences came from my "peers" and curiously, only from one particular young man who was seriously abused and damaged psychologically. The only other times someone attempted to bully me, I fought back viciously. I guess I had a reputation of "don't fuck with him, he'll hurt you bad."
I'm not saying it doesn't happen. It just never happened to me the way others are describing it. Bullies need to be put in their place as quickly as it becomes known that they are bullies. It falls on the schools involved to identify them and act swiftly and positively. By the way, bullying is not the sole baliwick of sport players. They come in all colors and flavors. Playing a sport does NOT automatically signify a person is a bully.
Catherine Linda MIchel
As a T-woman, I do have a Y chromosome... it's just in cursive, pink script.
My freshman year of high
My freshman year of high school in Texas (this was the late 90s), when I was getting picked on and attacked by a kid who was from a very well off family (his mother was on the school board), the people that stepped up to stop him bullying me were the starting QB and one of the starting linebackers on the football team. They actually saw him hit me with an instrument and then they put him face first into a wall and held him there.
Sure I got picked on in school by and large, but never in that school in Texas. And I never had bad things to say about the football players there.
Samirah M. Johnstone
My school was a bit of a
My school was a bit of a mixed bag. The only thing you had to pay for was the medical physical at the beginning of the year (about 25$)and you had to by your own letter jacket (so did everyone in the school) besides that all costs were paid by the school. All the equipment including uniforms were reused. You picked a number and got the jersey (different set of numbers for different sizes) I ended up with a jersey that was so big it would hang down below my knees when we would wear them on game days during school. I could have gone naked under that thing all day long and no one would have known better. :P
about 1/3 to half of all the guys in the school were in football, and we weren't a small school. We had three strings for every position and each grade had a team. So there were plenty of bullies as well as nice guys on the team. The star player did get treated better by the coaches but everyone, including him, had to pass to play and no presser was put on the teachers to pass them. (my mother was a teacher there herself). If anyone misbehaved and got written up, the coaches would make them run until they regretted it.
Of course I was never that good at football myself. I have no aggression to speak of, and wasn't that interested in the sport. The best time I had was when I hurt my foot and didn't have to participated for the rest of the season. My parents made me play but while I think if I had it over to do again I would have done some other kind of activity it did have it's benefits. It kept me from turning into a blimp and it kept me involved socially. (I have aspergers)
There seems to be two kinds of bullying, at least that I noticed. There is the mean bullying, and then there is the male social dynamics where they pick on you to see how you will react. This seems to be so they can establish a pecking order. (very important to guys I have noticed(edit: I'm a guy too but i don't really fit in society) It's also to see if you are 'cool', that you can handle yourself well. You either treat the 'bullying' like its bullshit between friends, which is what it will turn into, or you come back with something the rest of the males will think was a good comeback, thus lowering the bullies status. And most times if it comes to a physical altercation and you fight back well you will gain respect. I have seen guys become friends after a fight.
Of course if you have been relegated to the status of 'loser' a lot of that doesn't apply. all the guys will have already decide that whatever you say or do is 'uncool' so no matter how good your comeback, or how well you laugh it off your at the bottom of the pecking order. My own opinion is that this comes from the 'tribe' of guys back in the dawn of mankind need to drive off someone they have collectively decided was bad for the 'tribe'. either they weren't good at the hunter gather thing, or they did not fit in well socially.
As for the mean kind of bullying, some people are just bastards, not much more to say.
Bravo
While I am not sure there was enough evidence to warrant this action, I have to applaud the courage it took for the coaches to take such actions. My brother, my nephew and the husband of one of my nieces are all coaches. I don't like coaches. So I have to tread lightly on the subject of sports. I had some of the classic "It Builds Character" coaches and "our athletes can do no wrong" style coaches, in junior high and high school.
Paula
Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty.
The Coda
Chapterhouse: Dune