Silver Lining

Here’s a silver lining to the cancellation of youth sports this summer: Jerk coaches won’t have a chance to assault players.

 

I just read a story in yesterday’s NYT about an Olympic gymnast whose coach growing up (the coach being female, if that matters) employed public humiliation, hair-pulling and stupidity—as in having an athlete perform despite suffering on separate occasions a broken growth plate and dislocated knee—to get her point across.  And the point would be what, exactly, if not that sports is the last refuge of abusers?

 

Most any parent of an athlete has had to deal with these situations, and they can start by looking in the mirror.  I have a smart mouth, much smarter than my I.Q., which I had to keep it in check with Clare.  No, wait.  On reading that above sentence, I have to strip away the euphemism—the mouth was more cruel than smart.

 

I’m not asking for forgiveness here, in large part because I kept my mouth shut.  The meanest thing I said—and I freely admit to repeating—was this:  “And if you hit that pitch, where exactly was it going to go?”  Clare had a fondness for sliders away that I made it my mission in life to break her of.  Going on fifteen years after the fact, our relationship appears good, and my daughter will take care of me in my old age.  I think.

 

Clare’s high school and college coaches definitely weren’t abusive.  Coach Euks at Morton loved her for her bat from the first day of the season in freshman year.  On top of that, I doubt Coach had/has a mean bone in his body.  But Coach had an assistant who, if his body were ever found stuffed in a locker, every player on the team would’ve been a suspect.  The man was Don Rickles without the filter, is that’s possible.  Lucky for everyone surgery took him out of the dugout for parts of two seasons.

 

In college, Clare had Coach Brown and Coach P.  Brown was old school, definitely not above yelling, which in itself signifies nothing beyond than a preference for getting a point across.  Coach expected her players to perform at a high level, and she held them to it.  Coach also placed her trust in veterans first.  Had she stayed for Clare’s junior year, I’m pretty sure Clare would’ve been the veteran she most would’ve leaned on.

 

As for Coach Brown’s replacement, Coach P., it was like he took notes from Coach Euks on how to treat Clare.  We were lucky that way.  And it helped make up for the travel coaches.  Some of those guys, OMG.

 

Clare’s first travel coach did a dead-on if unintended impression of R. Lee Ermey, the D.I. in “Full Metal Jacket,” right down to the crew cut.  Coach didn’t swear, but I saw him push two of his players into asthma attacks, including my daughter.  But we were fortunate, in a way.  Clare was an insurance policy for Coach as a 13-year old on a 16-u team.  He ended up not needing her, and she went to another team in the organization before ever playing in a game for him.

 

The next two years we had good coaches, to be followed by two idiots the third year.  The one coach in particular was a gem.  He felt the need to inform Clare she’d never hit in college, and, during one game, grabbed a player by her helmet cage the better to yell at her.  Really, good times.

Each sport is different, I think, attracting a unique set of abusers.  Women’s gymnastics seems to be the worse.  What we went through in softball was bad enough.  Is it too much to hope things change once play resumes?  It shouldn’t be.