Last night, I was reffing a high school boys soccer game. There was an event that disturbed me. In the 35th minute, Blue took a direct free kick on White’s goal from 33 yards out. The ball went wide, but the keeper ran to his post (as he should). As soon as he stopped, I heard a “Pop”, he hit the ground and screamed:
“My hip, my hip”
I am not a doctor, nor am I trainer, but I’ve been around sports long enough to know what serious injuries look like. In my three second evaluation, he either dislocated his hip, or broke the connection between the shaft and ball head of his femur. Either injury hurts, and either injury can require surgery. This is a serious injury.
I stopped the clock and called for help to come onto the field. The head coach approaches his player, the first words out of his mouth were:
“Stop being such a pussy, grow some balls and man-up”
What the fuck?
This kid probably needs surgery and he is getting yelled at for being in pain. As the assistant coach was coming on the field, I quietly told him that I heard a pop, and the hip is probably wrecked. That calmed the head coach down when they removed him from the field.
That is one of the things I hate about refereeing low level games, pervasive toxic masculinity which drives a need to play hurt, to retaliate for perceived slights, and to look for a fight when down 3-1 instead of slowing play down for a second to discombulate the defense. How do we get that out of sports or at least minimize it enough so that players don’t get needlessly hurt?
Baud
You should have shot the head coach.
dedc79
I think we’ve just found Goodell’s successor (the head coach, not you)
Villago Delenda Est
The head coach needs a time out. A very long time out. May I suggest he stop being a wussy, man-up, and sign up to display his huge fucking ‘nads in Afghanistan?
Corner Stone
IMO, that kind of macho toxicity is a lot like racism. In the previous generations they were all taught that, it was beaten into them. Their fathers and other role models all did it that way, and by damn, they were gonna be made to do it that way too!
I think that’s changing as the coaches mature out of it, but the nature of sports takes a lot longer to allow wise choices to be made. The clash, the competition, the male ego, all make for a stew that just breeds possibilities for stupid decisions.
I say it’s like racism in that, IMO, each generation see that as less tolerable, and just don’t understand it. I think that kind of opening will also start filtering into sports. Eventually.
BWTS, my ex-BIL is a football coach and he’s a macho asshole who diminishes the stature of women consistently.
So maybe a few more generations.
FridayNext
I think that for even asking that question, the next front pager to post will get beaned by a 95 mph fast ball by a commenter because unwritten rules and we value the hallowed traditions of blogging.
Corner Stone
Who would see someone drop from a non-contact injury and think it was due to a result of wimpiness?
I mean, beyond dimwitted assholes.
Ruckus
@Baud:
I was going to say shoot the assholes but you may be more on point.
Elizabelle
Can you speak privately to the high school principal, or another contact you can trust?
Are you the only person (besides the injured goalkeeper) who heard the coach’s words? You do say “yelled”.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
Watch women play. That stuff isn’t nonexistent, with a few coaches being complete assholes, but there’s a lot less of it. Coaches spend less time trying to motivate the players by screaming at them, too.
cat
Never.
Low level athletics is full of bitter people who didn’t get ‘get what the deserved’ out of life. Being the big fish in a small pond is all they’ll ever have. Most of them ruin their players because they are terrible coaches.
Amir Khalid
It might help if someone were to utter a quiet word in a parent’s ear about this. A coach who chews a kid out in that situation is not someone to be trusted with your own kid’s welfare.
“Machismo stupidy”? Maybe you meant to say “macho stupidity”.
aimai
@Elizabelle: I agree that this is a very serious issue that should be taken up with the Coach and his supervisors. What a horrific thing to have witnessed, for the referees as well.
Wag
I have 8 1/2 year old boy girl twins, and yesterday they had great interactions with the same 14 year old ref in their separate games. It was the Ref’s second week reefing and he did a great job, acting as a coach in patiently explaining the rules to the kids, and giving do-overs when the keepers wiffed goal kicks. It was a good interaction with authority that is sorely lacking on our country.
c u n d gulag
This “tough guy” syndrome in sports has been around forever.
Back in 1975, I was told that my badly injured ankle was just a sprain by the doctor our HS recommended I go to, so, after a few days with a crutch, I got taped-up, and went to play on the defensive line.
Decades later, an Orthopedic Surgeon told me that I’d broken that ankle, and tore almost all of the ligaments.
Now, my ankle is an absolute mess. And it’s affected both hips and my back – I’m in constant pain, whether I sit, or lie down. And I really can’t walk or stand without a cane or walker.
I’m 56.
Oh, and last year, I drove my old HS and went to watch a football practice.
We used to practice on the football field, which was rocky and virtually grassless.
Two-a-days, on an open field, in the hot sun.
Well, they had a much nicer practice field built, and the players who weren’t involved in the plays, stood under canopies so that they wouldn’t have to be in the sun.
AND, THEY HAD PLASTIC CONTAINERS COLD WATER UNDER EVERY CANOPY!
We weren’t allowed to drink water on the field during practice.
We had guys pass-out.
THEN, they’d bring them water.
We were actually told to buy salt-pills!
Ditto, in wrestling – NO WATER! – even though we practiced in the hot, hot, boiler room of the school.
I know this sounds like – “Hey kids, I walked to school uphill – BOTH WAYS!”
But, it’s the truth.
At least now, while they’ve kept the idiotic mucho-macho, they’re protecting the kids from the sun, and keeping them hydrated.
That’s at least some progress.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
Oh, and the Carolina Panthers finally got around to suspending Greg Hardy.
scav
It’s also quite presumably macho to instantly ignore and actively belittle the observations and actions of the refs as a default position. Ain’t nobody the boss of me and they’re all blind, etc.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@c u n d gulag:
In fairness on this particular one, that was actually the consensus medical advice at the time. Don Shula has talked about it and said that he’d never have come up with that on his own and that he thought he was doing the medically proper thing.
The rest of it, though, was just sadism.
Luther Siler
Stop letting men coach.
Alternatively, recognize that low-level coaching is a lot like being a cop, in that many people who want that job want it for reasons that should keep you from giving it to them, and screen more effectively for assholes.
Wag
@Luther Siler:
Same thing goes for Scout Masters
Ella in New Mexico
As a ref you would have totally been within your rights to have not ignored what that coach said and instead faced him squarely and stated “Coach, you have a seriously hurt player here. That kind of talk is not helpful” (I might have thrown in a STFU just for good measure, but then, I have a potty mouth). That’s the leadership role that all adults, but especially those like you who have a formal role in the game, are expected to take.
But instead you chose the non-confrontational approach of telling his assistant coach, who will probably not mention it to him anyway, for the same reason. Because of that, the guy will not learn anything at all here, not get even one, tiny, inkling that what he said was terrible. The jerk needed some sort of smack in the face with reality, but instead everyone looked the other way.
And you let a hurt kid endure a cruel assault on his pain, something he didn’t deserve.
It’s true, there are quite a few bullies in youth sports. Seen a bunch of the in my 20 years with my kiddos, and it still amazes me when they pop up, like anachronistic holograms from the past. Because in general, the culture in youth recreational sports in my city in general is NOT that way anymore, and most coaches and parents are 100% against this kind of thing.
Speaking up in these situations is the only way things change. My husband and his co-coaches actually had to boot a parent from attending our son’s team’s games until he promised he’d sit a certain distance away and keep him mouth shut. It was hard, uncomfortable and created some hard feelings, but it was the right thing to do. Three of my kids were youth refs and they’ve had to tell parents and coaches off for yelling at players, and were able to do so because they’d had some sort of example set by other adults. It’s hard, but then, anything worth anything is hard.
I’m not worried about the “pervasive masculinity”, which is less masculinity, more deeply, self-hating, bullying. I’m more worried when we, as the good guys, are too afraid to do the right thing.
Ruckus
@c u n d gulag:
I’ve always held the impression that this is half the reasons for sports in the first place. Some place to be a “man”, to grow up to think that might makes right.
@cat:
This. Had a coach in jr high school who would pick up kids by the throat. Happened to the kid next to me and to one other that I saw. If we had been a yr or two older I imagine that one, he wouldn’t have been able to do this and two, if he had he probably would have received a swift kick in the nuts. I never saw anyone treated this badly in boot camp despite the stories that I had heard for ever.
RSA
Huh. One of my memories of playing baseball in the fourth grade was dropping a low line drive in the infield. Another kid came up to me after the play was over and advised me to stop playing like a pussy.
My suggestion, completely unworkable, is for sports figures, sports commentators, and sports fans at all levels to make it obvious when they talk about a game that it’s only a game or for some it’s their job to play. Do I go to work while suffering the pain of, say, a bad sprain or a broken finger? Maybe, maybe not, depending on a lot of things, but I’d laugh at someone who told me that that was the general expectation.
Frankensteinbeck
It will be difficult. Sports emphasize all-or-nothing competitiveness, tribalism, mob mentality, and adrenaline rushes. All of those bring out the worst side of humanity. I am not saying that there is nothing that can be done or that there’s nothing worth saving, but you’re rowing against the current.
SatanicPanic
Why would someone even give a shit? It’s a fucking high school soccer game. No one is ever going to miss a house payment because one player didn’t finish the game.
Davis X. Machina
Imagine your own coach being a bigger dick than Paolo Di Canio…..
Iowa Old Lady
There’s a connection between macho stupidity in sports and macho stupidity in international relations. Frankly, the sex that’s overly influenced by its hormones isn’t the one I belong to.
NorthLeft12
I coached a U17 girls premier soccer team and one of my starting fullbacks injured her ankle in the second last game of a tournament. I held her out of the game [and talked to her about it before the game] because she could barely walk let alone run and defend. Sure enough about ten minutes into the last and championship game her father walked up to me and asked why his daughter was not playing. I told him that she was not healthy enough to play. He bitched to me that they had driven all this way and had stayed overnight and he did not think it was fair that she was not allowed to play in the championship game. I knew him and had coached his daughter for two years before this. “Bob, I think her ankle is badly damaged. You should take her to the doctor or emergency when you get home. She won’t play for me until she tells me she has had it medically checked out and she is cleared.” He continued to bug me for most of the rest of the game, insisting that his daughter was fine.
Sure enough, a week later she called me and said that she needed surgery and was done for the season. Never heard from her father again, and she never played for me again [her choice].
Yes, there is something wrong with men and their attitude to sports. I quit playing old-timer [+35] soccer because of the fighting and constant bitching and moaning. Freaking incredible.
MattF
Uh, yikes. I-am-not-a-physician, but I don’t think kids break hips just like that. Something seriously wrong there, I’d bet.
NorthLeft12
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): Did they? I just saw that they did not activate him for todays game. I did not hear that they went ahead and suspended him.
That would be progress.
Corner Stone
@Iowa Old Lady:
Not to make excuses, but society is still enforcing some negative stereotypes for both male and female genders. Both are damaging in their own ways, to different outcomes.
It’s going to take a while.
Iowa Old Lady
@Corner Stone: You’re right, of course.
Corner Stone
And speaking of stupidity, down goes RGCheese on a sacktastic!
Suzanne
@Ella in New Mexico: Word to this. Patriarchy, and this was most certainly patriarchy at work, only crumbles when it’s directly challenged. I have found that people only stop doing this sort of thing when they find out that they’ caused genuine offense.
Example: I had a business associate talk to me about how the AIA (professional association) raised the cost dramatically of registration. However, he said, “They’re raping me, absolutely raping me!” I said, in front of other people, “I’m sure that what they’re doing is just as bad as actual rape.” I got a genuine apology. I hope that he remembers that the next time he goes to say that.
Suzanne
I also think that sports are taken way too damn seriously, and this sort of juvenile behavior will stop when collectively we stop giving a shit. They are entertainment, nothing more.
Corner Stone
@Suzanne:
***Ominous Hush***
Guy
I am not sure what the answer is to weeding out coaches like the one described. These are typically thankless volunteer positions so you often have to take what you can get. If you think this coach sounds bad, you should meet some of the the parents.
That said, properly led, youth sports can be a great tool for cranking out civilized adults. I did football in high school. The coaches worked us very hard, but always treated us, each other, and our opponents with respect and insisted on the same from us. If the doc recommended we sit out a game or several that was always the final word. I learned a lot about teamwork, perseverance, and self-control that has benefited me throughout my life.
Suzanne
@Corner Stone: No shit. For many, I know what I just said was borderline heretical. I had an ex-boyfriend who thought that toughness in sport was nothing short of heroic.
Barf.
Corner Stone
RGIII looks like a creaky old person (not being ageist!) when he tries to run.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@NorthLeft12: I think you’re right. He was just deactivated.
Corner Stone
@Suzanne:
Borderline?? For your heresy I’ll have you know I have already dispatched my terror team of immigrant ISIS fundamentalists to come illegally across the border and track you down.
Corner Stone
RGIII seems to be injured after scrambling out of the pocket.
Corner Stone
Kirk Cousins for the TD for the Washington team.
bemused
@SatanicPanic:
I know of adult friendships that have gone bust over some parents’ projecting their egos onto their kids’ sports performances. Every game, grade school to high school, was like a matter and death for these parents, the majority of them were the fathers. They set excessive performance standards for their kids, pushing them hard to play flawlessly at every minute of every game and exhibited jealousy when other parents’ kids did well. They tried to hide that jealousy but it showed. These fathers should never coach especially when their own kids are on the team. I remember vividly one boy in later grade school or early middle school who developed an obviously nervous eye tic that went into overdrive when he was pitching with his father coaching or present at the kid’s games. It was stomach churning to see what that kind of sport parent can do to a kid.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@NorthLeft12: I’ve liked most of the parents of Gopher players that I’ve gotten to know but there are a few of them that have that Horrible Sports Parent attitude. The father of one of last year’s freshmen complained to me about how the coach never consulted him on how his daughter gets used. It was really fascinating to listen to.
Corner Stone
RGIII leaving on a cart. Looks like a leg injury.
Older
My kids played on a lot of sports teams and I have seen at least two games where one of the coaches was “red carded” and the game stopped and awarded to the other team. One was a soccer game(a “friendly”), and the other was a basketball game. The basketball game was a league game so it was a bit of a local scandal.
Most of the coaches around here are very sensible and considerate people, but there have been a couple of games where I wished the ref had carded the coach (not our coach, fortunately).
MobiusKlein
@NorthLeft12: Thank you for being one of the good coaches.
I’m also happy with my daughter’s U13 coach – never rushes to put possibly injured players back in, even in championship games. But also manages to encourage toughness too.
JoyceH
@Suzanne:
Thanks. You know what I’d like? I’d like to see football (which is the worse of the bunch for this sort of thing) simply abolished at every level. Abolished until people can regain a sense of proportion and realize that it IS only a game.
We would know that sense of proportion has been regained when you no longer have to tell people, because it would be so bleeping obvious to everyone, that it makes precisely zero sense for cities to take the taxes paid by waitresses and janitors, firemen and nurses, to build infrastructure and give tax breaks for some massive arena that enables billionaires to get richer hiring millionaires to inflict brain damage on one another.
John M. Burt
@Older: And then there are the games where spectators get red-carded, and the far greater number where one or more should have been.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@MobiusKlein: There really is a fine line between teaching perserverence and how to play through pain and not playing someone when it would be dangerous. Actually, it’s not so much a fine line as a big gray area.
Corner Stone
@bemused:
My best friend’s dad used to ride his ass on the drive home after 4 for 5 performances in baseball. Nothing about the HR or the double with men on base.
Of course, my friend ended up playing pro baseball, but I still found it incredible. My dad always pushed me to give my best effort, but nothing like that dad.
trollhattan
Having been a sideline dad for somewhere around eight years, I have witnessed a lot of douchery from parents and coaches. Some parents have been banned from matches and practices. Some coaches, too. Now that we’re up to U13 the behaviors are being exhibited by some of the girls, as well. Yay. The injuries mount too, and the girls are now big and fast enough that the severity is increasing. Luckily, I’ve not seen anything like what’s described here. Especially important is following the concussion protocols and at least any coach I’ve let my kid play for is exceedingly cautious. (It’s a shame the science isn’t yet adequate to determine when it’s safe to return to the field.)
It’s the organized cheating that has shocked me the most. Related the story here before of the tournament host team last year (U12) who substituted older players for our semi-final match. Our parents and coach felt something was wrong and lodged a complaint and, because it was a tournament where all matches were videotaped, they were able to verify that many of the girls on the field were not the registered players.
This meant that coaches, parents and players had planned from the beginning to cheat. What a bracing thought that a kid sport, intended to promote health, work ethic, teamwork and yes, even fun had become a seminar on how to cheat and steal.
Match today at 2:00. This is starting to cut into my football!
Schlemazel [was Schlemizel till NotMax taught me proper yiddish!]
@Iowa Old Lady:
Funny, a lot of people would disagree with you on that. In fact there are people who would say just the opposite was true. I don’t think either gender is free from their hormones.
srv
The derp is coming to NYC
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
Nineteen days until hockey season.
trollhattan
@Wag:
My daughter ref-ed her first match last weekend–so dang cute, a 12YO out on the field with tiny U8s. The league pairs the new refs with veterans, so the match is also a working seminar. Am very happy the league does this, as it gives the players a completely new outlook on the game.
ETA And the coaches work the refs even at that age. [headdesk]
Schlemazel [was Schlemizel till NotMax taught me proper yiddish!]
@trollhattan:
My football coach taught us how to cheat well. I would tape my hands with tape the color of our opponents jersey (coach supplied the tape) and he taught us how to get the guy close so holding was hard to see. There was other stuff too. At the time I was young & stupid & knew that if I did these things I would play so I cheated. I also played hurt including probably having a concussion after getting kicked in the head (by accident) But then at that time it was just “got his bell rung”.
trollhattan
@Corner Stone:
A phrase I never, ever expected to see.
He’s going to be the Archie Manning of his generation.
Schlemazel [was Schlemizel till NotMax taught me proper yiddish!]
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
We had that mom who stood behind us at every home game & whined about her daughters playing time. Glad she changed schools. Most parents at the D-I level know the game and wouldn’t say anything like those two though.
Biscuits
@Iowa Old Lady:
Agreed. I may be a bit “off kilter” hormonally once a month. But, and I hate generalizing(!), it just seems to me that men struggle more with being hormonal in their own way all the time.
trollhattan
@Schlemazel [was Schlemizel till NotMax taught me proper yiddish!]:
I can’t begin to tally all the middle-age guys (mostly) I know hobbled by teen sports injuries. Reading of the big uptick in girls’ ACL injuries has me keeping the topic of tennis going at our house, should soccer’s siren call lose some of its attraction.
scav
@Schlemazel [was Schlemizel till NotMax taught me proper yiddish!]: My bet is that a good part of the underlying grrrrr is The dreaded female hormones are used to exclude, ignore and denigrate, while the male ones are a get out of consequences and giggle card. Boys will be boys v. the raging PMSers that shouldn’t be trusted with dangerous decisions because of instability. Detect obvious was once my D&D superpower (so long as the right number came up).
Suzanne
@scav: I think The effects of PMS are overstated, anyway. I don’t have it every month, and the times that I do just make it a bit more likely that someone will get what they deserve anyway.
bemused
@Corner Stone:
Those fathers sure didn’t seem to be having any fun at those games either. They were so tense. When they weren’t yelling, they were sweating, fuming and gritting their teeth which probably gave their dentists a lot of business.
Many, many years later, some of the worst behaviors witnessed by parents of other players will come up in conversations about when our now grown children were in elem school to high school sports and how much fun we had as parents cheering together in the bleachers except for the ego driven fathers. Those guys left permanent negative impressions.
Schlemazel [was Schlemizel till NotMax taught me proper yiddish!]
@scav:
True, testosterone poisoning is much more accepted by society.
@Suzanne:
sounds like the sort of thing a guy would say.
Jewish Steel
I quit playing pick up basketball because of asshole desk jockeys with no finesse or foot speed. Just body right into you over and over again. And I was as much to blame as they were because I saw it as my duty to punish them for sloppy play. And so the contest of wills would escalate. Afterward I would reflect that, eventually, something was going to get broken. And it would be just my luck, the broken thing would belong to me. So, I heeded my own advice and retired.
Suzanne
@Schlemazel [was Schlemizel till NotMax taught me proper yiddish!]: IME, most women spend a lot of time holding their tongues. My capacity to do that is somewhat diminished at times.
Schlemazel [was Schlemizel till NotMax taught me proper yiddish!]
@trollhattan:
I mentioned that here a couple days ago. I know that there are women with serious joint issues when their collegiate career is done. I worry about them maybe a little more than the guys because there is no promise of a fat pro contract at the end for them. Human bodies are not made to take the punishment elite athletes put on them.
Pen
Growing up in a football obsessed small town school i did the expected thing as one of the fastest track runners in school and tried out for the team. I got halfway through the first practice after making the trials and said to hell with it. The shit the coaches were demanding their players do was completely idiotic and the player culture was one of pure redneck machismo.
Behavior like that gets kids hurt, and I was lucky enough to know that my grades were too good for the coaches to screw with. Between my experiences in school and seeing how many university students are walking around my local campus in leg braces I’m convinced that these sports are, quite simply, dangerously. My son’s going to hate me when he’s older but I’ll be damned if I let him play.
scav
@Suzanne: Well, the traditional, notional effects are likely stereotyped in a manner convenient to those playing the card. Reality is complexer, of course. Merest drop of testosterone doesn’t dissolve the rational brain either, nor necessarily disable the ability to pick up socks sub-routine.
SatanicPanic
@bemused: Jesus. As a parent, I know it’s tough not to feel a bit of vicarious pleasure at your child’s performance in school, sports, whatever, but damn, that’s ridiculous. Maybe we could channel that feeling into something useful. How about we all compete to raise kids that are creative, empathetic and nice to each other?
raven
It’s the kind of shit that finally caused me to hang it up and leave the field of Parks and Rec. I was the state coordinator for the National Youth Sports Coaches Association
back in the day but I finally had my fill of trying to get coaches and parents to treat their kids decently. We conducted comprehensive training but, as someone responsible for organizing programs, we often ended up taking what we could get as the start of seasons approached. There is no question that the f2f leadership that a child gets is the most important part of their experience and it’s a shame that so many youth sports coaches look to jerks like Bob Knight as an example of how to coach.
Nate W.
Plus one to Ella in New Mexico‘s comment. While you may not be able to fix the systemic problem, you can do what’s within your power to combat it in situations in front of you. Here’s one suggestion that, depending on your league’s rules, you may be able to implement: Before your next game, pull the coaches aside and tell them that you have zero tolerance for verbal abuse. If they insult, belittle, or scream at their players, they will be ejected from the game. Try to get your fellow referees to adopt a similar policy.
bemused
@scav:
I worked with a guy that I and my other female co-workers swore was a stereotypical PMSer. He would periodically, no pun intended, become irritable, moody and irrational. We laughed because that didn’t happen with any of the female employees.
burnspbesq
@Corner Stone:
You think vicious shit doesn’t go on away from the ball in women’s sports? Pay closer attention.
bemused
@SatanicPanic:
As you may guess, these guys had some of the same issues in their relationships with people their own age too, jealousy being one of their biggest problems.
Gene108
@Corner Stone:
Mike Shanahan traded a ton to get RG3 and seems to have destroyed his career by not sitting him, when he got injured his rookie year.
I am not sure RG3 will ever live up to the potential that got hi drafted so high, because of how much he played hurt as a rookie.
raven
@burnspbesq: One of the worst college coaches I’ve seen is the Georgia Women’s B-Ball coach, Andy Landers. He’s revered for his coaching and he’s a total screaming asshole.
Suzanne
@scav: Did I say that? I tend to think of the stereotypical male behaviors more as a product of patriarchy than of hormones.
burnspbesq
Julie Foudy’s dad was notorious in youth soccer circles as That Dad. When she was a freshman at Stanford, they played at UC Irvine, and he went into his schtick. She looked at him and told him to shut up. It was priceless.
burnspbesq
@raven:
I don’t doubt it. He sure looks the part.
burnspbesq
The crap will stop in youth sports when it stops in the pros and D1.
Frank
How do you get it out of sports? How about “manning-up” and disqualifying the coach under rule 12.8.3.f: using insulting, offensive or abusive language or gesure[s]? The rules are there to stop this behavior. Referees must have the courage to use them.
raven
@Frank: Most of that bullshit goes on in practice.
? Martin
I’d have tossed him out over that. You can toss players/coaches for being offensive to the other team, but IIRC the regs don’t require it be against the other team.
cckids
My daughter quit playing softball at 12 because of other parents. Her coach, who she’d had since the age of 8 quit that year as well. People screaming at their kids, at other people’s kids, acting like the World Series was on the line. Her team had 2 games a week, 2 practices a week plus an “optional” session at a batting cage place, and some parents kept pushing the coach to have more practices. For kids between 8 & 11 years old.
I once saw a mother pull one of our relief pitchers (not her own kid) aside after a game & yell “I hope you know you lost us that game!”. She promptly got landed on by about 5 of the rest of us who saw it, but she was just an awful person, and the scene really scared lots of the kids.
Truly, if players or fans acted this way at the Series people would look at them like they were insane.
Ella in New Mexico
@Nate W.: Agreed. My view is that I probably can’t do much about the big, horrible things I read about everyday. I can at least try to change the stuff within my sphere of influence.
@Frank: Thank you. So sensible!
@Suzanne: Yeah, Sistah! ;-)
Yep, agree with all of you. Changing these kinds of things takes courage, and effort, but it can be done. From what I’ve seen, it takes a lot less confrontation than most people fear it will take, too.
JaneE
Is there someone higher up you can report this coach to? Anyone who would berate a player for crippling themselves should not coach, period.
Chris T.
Hip-out-of-socket seems more likely (at that age) than hip-fracture. An X-ray will confirm. The kid will need to have the hip reduced (this is trickier than one would think and requires a lot of force) and then a bunch of rest, anti-inflammatories, etc., and follow-up orthopedic visits.
http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/109225-overview
Nicole
Threads like this make me quite grateful that, if genetics holds true (on both sides of the family), it is unlikely my 4-year-old son will have any inclination or ability towards the game of sports.
I had a pretty aggressive gym teacher in high school who had a fair amount of contempt towards those of us with limited athletic ability. I remember we had to do a unit on table games, including ping-pong, which I, while never talented at, played a lot of with my family, and experience will count for something. My teacher played me in class once and I beat her. You’d think it would have raised me in her estimation, but no, she really disliked me after that. I really just don’t understand the sports mentality.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Nicole: Two of the coaches at my high school were also gym teachers. The football coach was a complete asshole, living up to the reputation of the abusive high school football coach.
On the other hand, the wrestling coach was one of the best teachers I ever had in any subject. I took his two semester gym class as a junior and then took it again as a senior for no credit because I liked him so much.
Villago Delenda Est
@JoyceH:
You might as well suggest that we abolish religion, because in some parts of the country, football IS a religion. Nominal Christians suddenly have higher priorities than church attendance in the fall.
Villago Delenda Est
@burnspbesq: I agree, if pros and D1 set a better example, it will migrate all the way down to the lowest levels of the game.
The thing is, at those levels, the health of the player is a concern only so long as it’s in the economic interest of those who run the game. Otherwise, the players are utterly expendable.
Villago Delenda Est
@srv: So as the Hasadim go, so go all American Jews.
The stupid, it fucking BURNS!
The writer needs to be beaten senseless with a menorah.
Should only take one whack.
burnspbesq
Dream start for Serbia. Up five early, and Davis has two quick fouls.
scav
@Suzanne: I had jumped from you to a general discussion of the topic, signaling what thread I was on using your name, and was just continuing with same. It wasn’t at all simply about whatever was in your specific mind, which I would have no way of knowing. Personally, I would think patriarchy would explain why men think they can and do get away with a lot of behaviors, while remaining firmly in the further research needed on the actual contribution of hormones to actual behaviors which my guess is will be subtle, complicated and not always what we expect, but likely present to some degree.
Keith G
Late to this thread, but…I coached football in Texas (public schools). I would expect to be fired for that type of conduct. PERIOD!
Richard, whatever unsportsmanlike penalty that was available to use against the bench, should have been called and I am aghast that you did not intervene. That is your pitch. You are in charge and the kids depend on you to do the right thing.
currants
@Suzanne:
and Ella:
Brava.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@burnspbesq: Yeah, that good start didn’t last.
exurbanmom
As a parent with athlete kids, I implore you to call the school’s athletic director on Monday and report the coach’s abusive behavior. I would also call the school principal. this kind of behavior must be reported so the school has a chance to either convince the coach to behave better or fire his ass before a kid gets seriously hurt.
Mandalay
@Iowa Old Lady:
Agreed. And add sexism at work. And add road rage. And add bar fights. And add wife beating. And add wars. And add preventing the empowerment of women. The list is really long.
The biggest problem in the world isn’t cancer or terrorism or global warming or malaria. It’s macho stupidity. And if someone can find a cure for it a lot of the other problems will diminish.
AJS
Fall of ’81 I tore my ACL and broke my tibia in the first Quarter of a HS football game. Team Doctor said to walk it off.
Coach at half time yelled at me and called me a pussy for not playing in the locker room. I was a Captain of the team and tried to lead by example.
My body was in shock and I was numb. Tried to run out after the half but my leg was shaking like a dead cat.
My father told the coach he would take me home. Coach said he was not allowed to. My father did anyway and drove me straight to the hospital with me screaming in pain in the back seat after the shock wore off.
Coach never said he was sorry or acknowledged his dickishness.
I later called him an asshole in front of another gym teacher and he just walked away, but not before he heard his colleague agree with a 17 year old kid.
rikyrah
Travis is at it again
…………………
Tavis Smiley Knocks President Obama Again
The political commentator said blacks have lost ground in every single leading economic category during his terms as president.
By: Lynette Holloway
Posted: Sept. 14 2014 10:34 AM
Tavis Smiley, known for his unrelenting criticism of Barack Obama, recently told the Huffington Post that his commentary is rooted in holding the president accountable as the nation’s leader.
“As Cornel West and I said many years ago; I respect the president, I will protect the president against white supremacist attacks or anything else he’s unfairly targeted for,” he told HuffPost Live host Marc Lamont Hill. “So you’re respecting, you’re protecting, but you’re correcting when he’s wrong. Not because he’s Barack Obama, but because he’s the president.”
Smiley went on to express concern about the current state of African Americans under Obama’s leadership.
“But the data is going to indicate—I said this before and I’m not happy about this, I don’t celebrate this,” Smiley told Hill. “I don’t say it as a way of demonizing the president or casting an aspersion on him – but the data is going to indicate that black people lost ground in every single leading economic category during the Obama years.”
http://www.theroot.com/articles/politics/2014/09/tavis_smiley_knocks_president_barack_obama_again.html?wpisrc=mostpopular
Corner Stone
Awesome run by Foster for a TD Texans.
ETA, Oh Foo!!
Tenar Darell
Mayhew
@scav:
It wouldn’t surprise me at all that the greater the competition, the greater the increases the levels of testosterone being pumped out by women or men, and the more easily this would cause a feedback loop. But testing it would require some work.
Based on this study mentioned in Nature about male researchers hormones’ actually causing stress in research animals, it’s possible that this could create a feedback loop related to aggression, perhaps more particularly in men. Considering that men and women pump out all sorts of hormones, it would be interesting to see what happens to athletes of both sexes if you make them play a video game…what do they start pumping out in a lab setting? Are there different levels alone, together, with someone of opposite or same sex? What if there is a prize? What if there is no prize? If there are “coaches” what happens to them?
Corner Stone
@burnspbesq: Could you stop being a ridiculous asshole with this kind of stupid snipe?
Corner Stone
JJ Watt for the floater TD!
Corner Stone
I see the Cousins led Washington team beat the stuffing out of JAX. Of course, it was Jax, but still.
Cousins is a much better option at QB than RGIII
Amir Khalid
@Corner Stone:
I think burnspbesq is making a perfectly valid point: that the unhealthy hypercompetitiveness in children’s sports being discussed here is by no means unique to fathers and male coaches.
Central Planning
I gotta say, the O30 soccer that my town hosts is great. There’s no goalies, just a bunch of old guys (I’m 44) running around having fun on Saturday mornings. “It’s a passing game!” is what is most often yelled across the pitch, kudos for good passes/shots/blocks/etc, and lots of “Sorry!” when a foot gets stepped on or some trips or falls. It’s the way sports should be.
rikyrah
G-T-F-O-H with this bullshyt
Philip RuckerVerified account @PhilipRucker
Harkin on Obamacare and Hillary: “I want you all to know that her fingerprints are all over that legislation.” #steakfry2014
Corner Stone
@Amir Khalid: That point could’ve been made quite easily without being a fucking douchecanoe.
My comment was very circumscribed to comment on the parameters laid out by Richard.
I wasn’t talking about “this one thing” to the exclusion of “all other relevant things”.
Mandalay
@rikyrah:
Smiley actually made a pretty good point if you listen to the interview rather than just cutting and pasting volatile comments taken out of context (and shame on The Root for doing that). This is what Smiley actually said:
I don’t care for Smiley much, but his criticism was valid, and not really directed at Obama. It was directed at the black community, which has asked for nothing from Obama, and of compliant black leaders (Sharpton?) who do not challenge Obama at all.
Corner Stone
@Mandalay: This oughta be interesting.
Hal
Test: My comments aren’t showing up all of a sudden.
Except for this one. huh.
zoot
most of the so-called “youth sports” in the US should be classified as child abuse: parents put their kids out there for their own entertainment without regard to the wellbeing of the kids including often their own.
Mnemosyne
This is probably because I showed absolutely no promise in athletics and had to be dragged kicking and screaming away from my books to be shoved onto a soccer field, but I have zero memory of my parents being involved in my soccer league. I mean, in retrospect somebody was driving me to the practices and games and buying the oranges for snacks, but I don’t remember them getting involved in trying to coach me, much less in trying to argue with the coach or referees.
cmorenc
Under NFHS rules, you have two options for dealing with this coach, at least one of which you SHOULD have taken:
1) YELLOW CARD for either:
a) 12-8-1-d: incidental use of profane or vulgar language (“pussy” qualifies as a vulgar degradation of the person it is spoken to, as well as its profane sexual innuendo)
b) 12-8-1-e: vanilla unsporting behavior
OR
2) STRAIGHT RED FOR EITHER:
a) 12-8-2-b:Strait Red for taunting his own player (use of a word or act to incite or degrade an opposing player, coach, referee, or other individual – his own player counts as an “other individual” in this context. The state athletic association isn’t going to quibble with you over technicalities of whether a coach’s own player is an “other individual” or not if you do a good job writing up the incident in your report because it alternatively fits 12-8-2-f below);
b) 12-8-2-f: using insulting, offensive, or abusive language or gesture.
My inclination would be to send this coach off with a prompt, prominently displayed red and point of my arm to the stadium exit. But you shouldn’t let him off without at least a yellow.
Dog On Porch
Minutes after a game ended, and in full view of at least a dozen adults, I witnessed a little league coach throw a bat at full strength towards “his” first baseman’s ankles. It didn’t come real close to hitting him, but not for lack of trying. I was 12, maybe 13 years old.
Then again, the kid did commit the errors that kept our game winning rally alive. So who am I to judge?
Ruckus
@Iowa Old Lady:
I agree with this but have one caveat. We don’t have to be a slave to hormones, some just either like being dicks or have no idea that they don’t have to be. And it is perpetuated a lot by sports. Or politics, which some see as a sport. Animals are competitive, it is in the nature of staying alive. Which in modern life is not necessary that often. We have to learn when it is either not necessary or harmful.
mclaren
Simple.
Ban sports outright.
Ruckus
@bemused:
Men do have hormonal cycles, it’s just usually not so apparent, the main physical thing is being more of a dick, which for some is hard to tell from the other weeks of the month.
Suzanne
My Spawn the Elder has decided that she wants to be on a volleyball team, so we signed her up at the local Y. We entered her the recreational league rather than the competitive league. I am so torn, because I am pretty competitive by nature (though not at sports), and my hippie mom tried to quash that, and I often wished that she had supported me a bit more. If Spawn wants to get competitive, I want to encourage her, but I also will not tolerate this sort of insanity on the part of the adults involved. Sigh.
chopper
@mclaren:
That sounds simple.
catclub
@Amir Khalid: I have heard about beauty pageants for inappropriately young
girls. Some competitiveness seems to appear.
Sterling
@Amir Khalid: I’ve seen as much competitiveness on the internet boards as I’ve ever seen in sports. People will call you a dick just for disagreeing with them, and rarely is anyone willing to concede a point. Many people, even the one’s not brimming with testosterone, are extremely competitive and focus on winning at the expense of politeness, good sportsmanship, and generosity of spirit. Otherwise decent people can get all kinds of vicious over a point in a debate with zero stakes. It’s not something people pick up in sports. It’s just the way some people are.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@Baud:
Success in one. Seriously, though, the guy needed a punch in the nose. That was a dislocation for sure.
Chris
Clearly that kid just needs more grit.
Arclite
@Baud:
Come on, now. We’re no longer that barbaric. A simple tongue extraction leaves the coach in perfect health and unable to inflict such insults on anyone else.
On a more serious note, why not just eject him?
Mary
The most toxic coaching I ever witnessed/experienced was by a married couple who coached field hockey and girls basketball at my high school. While I never personally witnessed them engaging in the particular brand of abuse described in this post, they both had rather infamous tempers and were constantly berating players. The number of eating disorders they inspired was pretty incredible. They, and the school, were eventually sued by a former player for physical and emotional abuse. The jury awarded the plaintiff a seven figure award, although the judge ended up reducing it to the low 6 figures.
brantl
Until you get rid of the “I’m tough enough to play when seriously hurt!”, instead of “I’m smart enough to stop when I’m seriously hurt, instead of injuring myself further.”, you’re going to contnue to get a lot of ths. When you can sue a coach for telling you to play when you might be badly hurt, that might change.
brantl
@mclaren: mclaren, rhymes with glarin’, as in glarin’ asshat.
Richard Mayhew
@trollhattan: That is how things should be done to break in the new refs — pair the newbies with hopefully either a 16 year old or 40 year old for a couple of weekends.
Richard Mayhew
@Frank: oh, he was shown a red once the trainer had gotten to the point where
hethe player could be safely moved off the field. One battle at a time.chopper
@Richard Mayhew:
wait, instead of immediately getting in the coach’s face, you were more concerned with the injured kid? you monster!
terraformer
We were out to breakfast with our 3 year old this past weekend. Behind us, there was a table of adults who were apparently coaches for the 9-11 year old soccer team who was at a larger table further away. I could not help but listen to the coaches’ banter while we ate.
They were pretty catty, almost like high-school cliques in the kinds of things they were saying and the tones they were using. They were cursing too, which made me turn around and give the eye to one of them. But I wondered how people like that end up being such an influence on young lives. I also wondered whether my sample of one can be extrapolated. I hope not…
Richard Mayhew
@terraformer: It varies, there is a wide range of people who coach. At the club level, there are coaches who I would never trust nor want around my kids and then there are others, where if my kids wanted to play soccer, I would drive them across the metro area to go to practice with that coach until U-14s (at that point, their developmental ability is surpassed by their lack of team tactical ability). It varies.
mch
This story reminds me of when I “coached” and “reffed” my 5 year old son’s soccer, after a clinic from a really amazing college soccer coach (his mantra: keep it moving — soccer is all about keeping it moving — don’t whistle but the most flagrant things — and let them have fun, let them have fun). As the only woman among men as we reffed games, I was gobsmacked: every little infraction by these five year olds, the men’s whistles went off. God, it was frustrating. These were children, playing around, weren’t they? No, not it in the minds of these men.
Fast forward maybe twelve years to high school basketball. Same son, but now I am totally an onlooker. A good-hearted coach overall, but he was imperfect. After a lost game that I thought was, well, just a game, said coach comes to car, leans in window, and berates my tender boy (does coach really not see how tender and uncertain of himself this boy is? has the goal of winning so demented him?) for not TRYING hard enough. Shit and shit and shit: said tender boy was trying as hard as he could. He wasn’t good enough at what he was trying to do (some silly basketball game, for Christ’s sake) to do what COACH wanted. Sorry, coach. Sorry, sorry, sorry.
Be careful with your children in sports.