PositiveSports.net

Youth Baseball Death Highlights Need For Tracking Youth Sports Injuries

Last week in Chicago, a 12-year-old Oswego boy was fatally struck in the head with a baseball while playing catch with a teammate off the field during a game in Wheaton.

A USA Baseball study found that between 1989 to 2010, there were 18 baseball-related deaths in children younger than high school age died, most of them when a pitcher or batter was hit in the head by a ball. 

The recent Chicago tragedy has prompted park district directors and youth league officials to review safety guidelines, and parents to double-check the fit of their children's protective gear. Additionally, it has highlighted the need for a national database to track accidents in youth sports, which could be used to help recognize and minimize injuries.

Read the full Chicago Tribune Article here.

 

Study says coaches can help prevent teen dating violence

A new study conducted in California finds that a structured program delivered by coaches called Coaching Boys into Men is effective for discouraging dating violence—the physical, sexual, and emotional aggression prevalent in adolescent romantic relationships.

The new study was conducted among over 2,000 young male athletes in 16 high schools in four urban school districts in Sacramento County, Calif., between winter 2009 and fall 2010. Eight of the schools were randomly selected to receive the program, while the other eight schools served as comparisons.

The surveys also asked whether the athletes had witnessed any abusive behavior and actually intervened. The young men who had ever dated were asked whether they themselves had participated in any of 10 abusive behaviors including physical, sexual, and emotional abuse toward a female partner in the past three months. Eighteen percent of the male athletes who had ever dated reported perpetrating any abusive behavior toward a female partner in the past three months, with verbal and emotional abuse being most common.

Read the full article from Futurity here.

 

 

Study: The Price of Poverty in Big-Time College Sport

A newly released study by National College Players Association (NCPA) and Drexel University Department of Sport Management blames colleges sports scandals on a black market created by unethical and unpractical NCAA restrictions on college athletes. This study will surely have its detractors, but it should give pause to parents and coaches of athletes with aspirations to play Division I college sports. From the press release:

Examining football and basketball teams from Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) colleges, the study calculates athletes' out-of-pocket educational related expenses associated with a "full" scholarship, compares the room and board portion of players' scholarships to the federal poverty line and coaches' and athletic administrators' salaries, and uses NFL and NBA collective bargaining agreements to estimate the fair market value of FBS football and basketball players. The study...shows that the average scholarship shortfall (out-of-pocket expenses) for each "full" scholarship athlete was approximately $3222 per player during the 2010-11 school year. The report also found that the room and board provisions in a full scholarship leave 85% of players living on campus and 86% of players living off campus living below the federal poverty line. The study estimates the fair market value of the average FBS football and basketball player to be $120,048 and $265,027, respectively.

Read the full press release and link to the full study at the NCPA website.

 

(Book Review) Play Their Hearts Out: A Coach, His Star Recruit, and the Youth Basketball Machine

This well-written but disturbing book crystallizes what can go wrong when young athletes are placed in the wrong adults' hands. 

From Publisher's Weekly at Amazon.com: (George) Dohrmann, a Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter for Sports Illustrated, spent eight years chronicling the struggles and triumphs of a select group of California youths who chased their dream in his wonderful and immaculately reported first book. Dohrmann largely focuses his work on Demetrius Walker, the hoops phenom who seems destined for stardom at a young age, his travel team from California, and the club's complex and bombastic coach, Joe Keller. Dohrmann began reporting on the book back in 2000, when Walker and many of his teammates were only 10 years old, and followed them through to their high school graduation. Along the way, he shows the brutal nature of "grassroots" basketball, in which coaches can view their players as "investments," the power of sneaker companies in youth basketball, and the cutthroat antics of collegiate recruiting. But this is equally a story about relationships and the sad deterioration of many of them, whether it be among teammates, parents and son, or coach and player. It's a brilliant and heart-wrenching journey, and a cautionary tale to any basketball player who thinks the path to the NBA is a slam dunk.

Learn more at Amazon.com.

 

Nobody's Perfect, but They Were Good: Peggy Noonan on the Near-Perfect Game

By now everyone has heard of Armando Galarraga's quest to pitch a perfect game, and umpire Jim Joyce's mistaken call.  Syndicated columnist Peggy Noonan writes pointedly about the aftermath:

"What was sweet and surprising was that all the principals in the story comported themselves as fully formed adults, with patience, grace and dignity. And in doing so, Galarraga and Joyce showed kids How to Do It.

A lot of adults don't teach kids this now, because the adults themselves don't know how to do it. There's a mentoring gap, an instruction gap in our country. We don't put forward a template because we don't know the template. So everyone imitates TV, where victors dance in the end zone, where winners shoot their arms in the air and distort their face and yell "Whoooaahhh," and where victims of an injustice scream, cry, say bitter things, and beat the ground with their fists. Everyone has come to believe this is authentic. It is authentically babyish. Everyone thinks it's honest. It's honestly undignified, self-indulgent, weak and embarrassing."

Read the full article at the Wall Street Journal

As Girls Become Women, Sports Pay Dividends

Separate studies from two economists provide strong evidence that team sports can result in lifelong improvements to educational, work and health prospects for girls. 

Read the full article at the New York Times...

Would you cheat for $385,000?

This is the question prompted by the recent decision of a professional golfer.  In this ccommentary from the Center for ETHICS* at the University of Idaho, PhD student Tom Grant and professor Sharon Kay Stoll examine this fascinating case study in ethical decision making.  This brief article and video can provide an excellent teaching aid for discussing sports ethics with your athletes.  

Click here to read the article and view the video....

 

 

UGA professor's research shows black athletes exploited physically, neglected academically

March 18, 2010

(PhysOrg.com) -- University of Georgia professor Billy Hawkins says fans should consider several numbers that tell a lot about the current structure of intercollegiate athletics. And it is not a pretty picture.

Click here to read the full article...

 

Coaching and Parenting for Ethical Toughness

By Steve Horan

Research shows that sports participation is actually eroding the moral reasoning of many athletes.  The good news is that coaches and parents can make a difference by coaching 'ethical toughness' and by engaging athletes in dialog about ethics and sports. 

 

Anyone paying attention knows that there is an ethics crisis in sports.  The media are full of stories about 'ethically challenged' athletes, coaches, parents, and administrators.  And most of us can point to people in our own communities who have visibly crossed ethical lines in pursuit of athletic success.

 

The headline-grabbing ethics violations we see in the news are rooted in a much less visible crisis which runs wider and deeper than many people think.   The less visible ethics crisis in sports is a steady, widespread erosion of moral reasoning in competitive athletes.   This is certainly not  happening to all athletes, but it is happening enough to cause serious concern. 

 

Research on Moral Reasoning of Athletes

 

The erosion of moral reasoning has been documented by  The Center for Ethical Theory and Honor In Competition and Sport (ETHICS) at the University of Idaho.  ETHICS has studied the moral reasoning of athletes for 20 years.  Over that time the Center has compiled data on moral reasoning for more than 70,000 athletes at the high school and college level. Their findings show that on average, the longer athletes participate in competitive athletics, the more impaired their moral reasoning becomes.  In simple terms, the longer they participate, the more likely they are to lie or cheat - or tolerate lying and cheating - in the name of winning. 

 

If we project the Center's research findings to the entire population of young athletes, we can assume that this problem involves thousands of athletes across the country.  When we consider that most sports programs justify their existence in terms of character education, the fact that competitive athletics may actually erode moral reasoning has to be troubling. 

 

The good news is, research by ETHICS also shows the moral reasoning of athletes can be sustained or restored through deliberate character education.  The ETHICS' Character Education Program and other such programs do help athletes strengthen their moral choices regarding athletic competition.  The University of Georgia football program has been a pioneer in bringing this kind of character education to the highest level of competition sports.

 

Coaching and Parenting for Ethical Toughness

 

Few coaches have the time or resources to implement a full-fledged character education initiative as part of our athletic program.  But coaches and parents can talk about character every day, and more importantly, engage our athletes in dialog about ethics and sports. As recommended by researchers Brenda Light Bedemeier and David Light Shields in their work for the President's Council on Fitness and Sports:

 

The most important educational process is probably dialog. Moral reasoning is

unlikely to advance if the athlete is simply a passive recipient of the coach’s exhortations, however prosocial they may be. Children and adolescents need to talk about their values; they need to discuss their views of right and wrong, both with their peers and with respectful adults. Coaches should make space in team meetings for discussion of moral issues relevant to sports in general and to the life of the team in

particular.

The power of dialog will be amplified if it is combined with meaningful responsibility. Athletes who cooperatively share in important dimensions of team decision-making are likely to benefit substantially. To maximize social and moral growth, coaches should use a democratic leadership style in which responsibility  for developing team norms, goals, and expectations is shared with the members of the team. If team members develop a sense of ownership for the team and feel responsible for maintaining the team’s expectations, they can learn important lessons about both character and citizenship.

In simple terms, coaches and parents have the power to help athletes sustain and strengthen their moral reasoning.  This works best when we make it a priority to 'coach for ethical toughness' and include our athletes in a daily dialog about ethics and moral reasoning. 

Thanks for promoting positive youth development through sports!

 

What's your Sportsmanship IQ?

This introductory video brings notice to the Sportsmanship I.Q. test that is provided through STAR Sportsmanship, a project of Learning Through Sports Inc., which is focused on sportsmanship, character education, critical thinking skills, steroid and drug education.

STAR Sportsmanship's website features many articles relating to the success of the STAR Sportsmanship educational program in school settings, as well as a national movement towards more emphasis on sportsmanship in youth sports. 

Click here to read articles on the STAR Sportsmanship Curriculum.