“You look like a bunch of fifth grade sissies after a cat fight! You got anger, that's good you're gonna need it, you got aggression that's even better you're gonna need that, too. But any little two year old child can throw a fit! Football is about controlling that anger, harnessing that aggression into a team effort to achieve perfection!”
(Click Here) for this week’s video involving youth sports and the Choices of a coach most likely in response to the actions of a player on the opposing team. What the coach did was inappropriate, no argument here. But as I wrote about on Tuesday, I know sports and I know leadership and when it comes to youth sports, I take great pride in knowing the pulse of my team, organization and town. And folks, as I have written and spoke about many times, we have some serious challenges (oh screw it, they’re problems) in youth sports these days and it is not just because of coaches like the above although that doesn’t help.
Sorry Joe Deavenport (father of son who was shoved), I cannot completely support you on this one based on my firsthand experience with kids on the field and parents on the sideline. This game involved 11 year-olds and I can tell you having coached kids age 7-9 over the last few years and having an 11 year-old myself, the language kids use on and off the field is horrible including f-bombs and calling other kids the names of body parts. I have also coached against plenty of teams whose kids do not play the game the right way and usually that stems from the coaches. Even if I want to give the coach the benefit of the doubt, he or she is still responsible for their team’s behavior and should address and control it or they should not be coaching. Sadly, it is usually the star players who exhibit this poor or cheap behavior and the coach does not have the intestinal fortitude to sit him out or remove him from a game.
My above paragraph does not pertain to the Deavenports, their team, the opposing team or its coach; I am using their incident to share the stuff that is happening on youth football fields all across our country. But my instinct tells me that the kid who got shoved is not an angel in this situation. I’ll give you the poor sportsmanship on the opposing coach but let’s settle down a bit with the assault accusations as this appears to be the lead-up to a lawsuit. And why the need to go on the news with your son and play the victim using words such as “assault”, “physically and forcefully”, “safe zone” and “affected emotionally”?
Where is the coach of the team that this kid was on in all this? As a fellow coach, I would hope he has an opinion on this and could probably de-escalate the situation. For example, this same incident could happen against my team and I would not be totally surprised as I have a few kids with fresh mouths and can play chippy. The difference is that my coaches and I always address it in games or practices and thankfully, they are not vulgar or cheap, but they do get fired up and can lose their cool. We always use it as teaching moments. So if a coach did this to one of my players, I would be involved and would have a good idea why the coach did what he did. Still not justifying this but like many incidents, we go from teaching moment to hornet’s nest (last week’s post). Opposing Coach screwed up and video proves it, discipline him as needed including suspension or dismissal from coaching.
There are usually 3 sides to every story and I am confident there are here. If this were my kid being shoved, I too would want answers and accountability but I would first start with my son. I would then go to his coach and hope he would be unbiased and give an honest assessment of what went on in the game as I am sure both teams had their share of mouthiness and aggressive play that bordered on cheap. Like we tell our kids even at the lower levels, its football and it’s an aggressive and physical sport. This coach that shoved this kid screwed up and it may cost him dearly. Or this boy’s parents can help use this entire situation as a lesson for all of us and it does not involve the police or lawsuits. Coach Boone in the movie “Remember the Titans” said it best in our opening quote.
