It Starts Early

Over the past two months, allegations of abuse by present and former coaches have rocked the NHL.  So far one coach—Bill Peters of the Flames—has resigned for what he said (racial comments) as well as what he did, and another, Blackhawks’ assistant Marc Crawford, has been suspended after allegations surfaced that he kicked players on at least two occasions, though not while employed by the Hawks.  Trust me when I say abuse isn’t confined to hockey or suffered by male players only.

For Clare, it started in the spring of fifth grade, when she moved up to Bronco ball.  The new coach was what you might call a real screamer; the resulting humiliation and/or fear just a bonus.  Because of this guy, Clare started to think softball had to be better than baseball.  Only it wasn’t.

We found that out with the first travel team she made in eighth grade; I was pretty much advised by other fathers not to question any decisions by the coach, if I knew what was good for father and daughter.  Coach II didn’t scream as much as he drove players to the extreme.  One time at practice, the first baseman dropped one too many grounders during a drill.  Coach made her run and then take more grounders.  This stopped when she asked for a timeout so she could take her asthma inhaler.  Great guy that he was, the coach allowed it.

That first fall and winter of travel practice, I saw other coaches, both male and female, act in much the same way.  There was yelling along with pushups.  Why fourteen-year olds not on the field had to do pushups because the batter missed a sign I couldn’t say.  But they did.

While Clare’s varsity coach in high school was a great guy, one of his assistants was something less.  With him, it was sarcasm all the time, that plus the occasional outburst of screaming.  But I never saw anyone lay a hand on a player a la Woody Hayes until travel ball between Clare’s junior and senior year, when her coach shook a teammate by the cage of her batting helmet.  I kept the girl’s father from charging the coach, a man who told Clare she would never hit college pitching.  Maybe I should’ve stepped aside instead.

Sports is too emotionally intense not to expect people to say dumb things or things too loud; that’s what apologies and cooler heads are for.  But it doesn’t matter if the game or even the season is on the line, you never touch out of anger, and you never humiliate.

Those would seem to be the first two lessons for any coach on any level to learn.  As for the NHL, but late than never, I guess.