Postby brewskis » Thu Mar 17, 2016 11:35 am
If you can't take an ass-chewing, you don't belong in collegiate athletics and you should leave.
It's just that "simple."
As usual, it is impossible to have an intelligent conversation on topics like this, without entire regiments of straw men being drawn into service.
One reason I think sports is important is precisely because of learning how to take immediate and harsh criticism designed to promote performance without wilting into buttercupism or snowflakeism.
There's always a fine line. And there are coaches out there not so aware that there is one. Coaches are still responsible authority figures, but when the "responsible" yields to malevolent, that's not coaching. Coachs are hire to improve kids, not wreck them.
I can't find the reference, but when I was in high school, I recall a Sentinel student who had broken his neck during practice at the Fairgrounds fields, and as he lay there dying the coach was yelling at him to get up, that he was worthless. Last words the kid heard.
Death of Bigfork football player a few years ago:
It also alleges that the first member of the football coaching staff to reach Bowman after he collapsed while running a lap "yelled at Jeffrey to get up and get going" while grabbing him by the shirt.
The second coach who arrived, the lawsuit alleges, "reached down, grabbed the inside of the waistline of Jeffrey's pants, lifted him off the ground, then dropped him onto the ground." ....
"As Jeff fought for his life on the field, the coaches could have saved him with the school's defibrillator," Robert and Troy Bowman said in a statement released by their attorney, Daniel J. Caplis of Denver. "But the coaches did not use it to save our son from what they had done to him."
http://missoulian.com/news/local/parents-sue-over-son-s-death-during-football-practice/article_caebc99e-ac0e-51d5-a7f7-aafeb1730c11.html
He wasn't "tough" enough.
In 2011, the NCAA failed to investigate what is arguably the worst-case scenario: when a player dies.
Derek Sheely, 22, collapsed on the practice field at Frostburg State in Maryland after complaining of a headache to his coaches. According to the family's lawsuit, he had been subjected to 13 hours of contact practice within three and a half days.
He died six days later.
An anonymous email later sent to the parents alleged the coaches knew he'd been bleeding with a lump on his head for several days, yet when he complained of not feeling well, one coach said, "Stop your bit****g and moaning and quit acting like a pu**y and get back out there Sheely!"
The letter says the coaches continued yelling at him after he collapsed.
A teammate, Brandon Eyring, later told CNN that there were plenty of warning signs ignored.
"They were more focused on building tough football players than on safety in my opinion,” Eyring told CNN. "It's kind of the culture. Just, again, again, the only word I can put is gladiator. You're going to fight, unfortunately to the death, I mean that's kind of how it happened and it's not metaphorical at this point, that's kind of what happened."
http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2014/10/us/ncaa-concussions/
Posted 4/11/2008
ORLANDO (AP) — Four teammates of a Central Florida football player who died last month say he showed signs of distress before collapsing following an intense workout, a newspaper reported Friday.
Ereck Plancher died March 18, about an hour after taking part in the team's "mat drills." A cause of death has not been determined.
Teammates told the Orlando Sentinel that Plancher's final workout was more intense than what school officials initially described. The players requested anonymity because they feared retribution from coaches.
"Everybody was struggling at times," one player said. "... But (Ereck) was running, and I could tell something wasn't right. His eyes got real dark, and he was squinting like he was blinded by the sun. He was making this moaning noise, trying to breathe real hard."
The players also said Plancher, a 19-year-old receiver from Naples, Fla., fell during one run.
"The coaches were yelling at him to get up, and of course, he came in last," one of the players said.
Golden Knights coach George O'Leary disputed the players' account.
"I did not see him struggle on the field," O'Leary said. "From my professional opinion, what should have been done for his care was being done."
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/sports/college/football/cusa/2008-04-11-ucf-death_N.htm
Makes the wrong kind of fan "feel tough" himself when the wrong kind of coach has 18 and 20 year brains and bodies to "toughen up." Like everything else, there's a way to do it and there's a way not to do it. Woe be to a program that incurs a death like any of those because of mindless fanbase, chanting "Coach, Coach, Coach!" while a player dies.
Unfortunately, this is not a subject that can be approached with any "nuance" at all. Call it "Extreme Coaching," there's no place for it except to fanatic foaming fans who demand that young adults endure what that fat fan never did.