Post by Coach4Life on Dec 1, 2004 14:45:12 GMT
Coaches,
I've noticed in our league (12-15 year olds) that some of the teams are exhibiting a real breakdown in the value of sportsmanship. For example, one team we played made sure to violate protcol by waiting until we were weighing in, coming over to the weigh in spot blowing an air horn, and then proceeding to stand there and stare us down in an attempt at intimidation (unfortunately it worked on a few of the kids as they gave up when they fell one score behind). The same team walks on the field with the chant of "Who's Your Daddy? Team name". Tape of a playoff game with these guys shows they clearly went after my QBs knees on one play with the DC not watching the result downfield on a 60 yard pass play but rather looking to see if my QB got up. They later succeeded in knocking him out with broken collarbone by driving him into the ground on a clean hit after he'd released the ball, but hey, that's football. What isn't football is when the player making the hit got up and stepped on his broken shoulder.
We had an incident last week when this same team lost on the last play of their next playoff game, started tossing hats around in anger and one of them hit someone on the other team's Grandmother (he claimed it wasn't intentional), gashing her head. The player in question has been tossed from the team and the league. I've seen similar incidents of helmet tossing at the HS level from teams with coaches that I know would never allow it and won't stand for it.
These kids see the NBA fight, SC-Clemson, and listen to music that encourages thuggish behavior, so it is a broader societal problem. It seems that all the old school guys are saying you just can't go there, but some of the younger guys (Shannon Sharpe and Lebron James are two I heard) are saying if somebody disses you, you gotta take care of business.
I believe we have a chance to be a tremendous influence on these guys via our role as coaches and at least part of the solution starts with us. I'm working through league channels to bring this issue to light. My question for you is realizing that we are somewhat limited in that we can only control our teams, does anyone have any ideas on how we can begin to address this issue?
I've noticed in our league (12-15 year olds) that some of the teams are exhibiting a real breakdown in the value of sportsmanship. For example, one team we played made sure to violate protcol by waiting until we were weighing in, coming over to the weigh in spot blowing an air horn, and then proceeding to stand there and stare us down in an attempt at intimidation (unfortunately it worked on a few of the kids as they gave up when they fell one score behind). The same team walks on the field with the chant of "Who's Your Daddy? Team name". Tape of a playoff game with these guys shows they clearly went after my QBs knees on one play with the DC not watching the result downfield on a 60 yard pass play but rather looking to see if my QB got up. They later succeeded in knocking him out with broken collarbone by driving him into the ground on a clean hit after he'd released the ball, but hey, that's football. What isn't football is when the player making the hit got up and stepped on his broken shoulder.
We had an incident last week when this same team lost on the last play of their next playoff game, started tossing hats around in anger and one of them hit someone on the other team's Grandmother (he claimed it wasn't intentional), gashing her head. The player in question has been tossed from the team and the league. I've seen similar incidents of helmet tossing at the HS level from teams with coaches that I know would never allow it and won't stand for it.
These kids see the NBA fight, SC-Clemson, and listen to music that encourages thuggish behavior, so it is a broader societal problem. It seems that all the old school guys are saying you just can't go there, but some of the younger guys (Shannon Sharpe and Lebron James are two I heard) are saying if somebody disses you, you gotta take care of business.
I believe we have a chance to be a tremendous influence on these guys via our role as coaches and at least part of the solution starts with us. I'm working through league channels to bring this issue to light. My question for you is realizing that we are somewhat limited in that we can only control our teams, does anyone have any ideas on how we can begin to address this issue?
