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IN THIS ISSUE: FRONT ROW Youth- and School-Based Sports: SIDELINES Announcements
FRONT ROW YOUTH- AND SCHOOL-BASED SPORTS
Pitcher Banned for Being Too Good At first, the story seemed shocking: Nine-year-old Jericho Scott of, Connecticut, can throw a 40 mph fastball. He throws so hard that parents in his coed developmental league were concerned for their kids’ safety. The Youth Baseball League in New Haven agreed and forbade him from pitching anymore, suggesting he move up to the pony league. When Scott’s parents refused and let the boy take the mound in a recent game, the opposing team packed up and left, forfeiting the game. “He’s never hurt anyone,” his coach Wilfred Vidro told the Associated Press. “He’s on target all the time. How can you punish a kid for being too good?” After the initial outrage wore off, the real story emerged. After Jericho was invited to join the defending league champion, his parents turned down the offer because the team was sponsored by a barbershop where the league president cuts hair. When Jericho and another all-star player joined another team headed for the playoffs, his parents said the league retaliated. Mark Kreidler of ESPN.com says that’s hogwash. “Age is an almost useless calculator of youth sports talent. Little League Baseball figured this out years ago, which is why its national charter allows for its majors division to be filled with players who range from barely 9 to nearly 13. “The most common response to a dominant player in kids’ sports is to move him or her up to the next level of competition. Now tell me again the part about the big bad league that is beating up on the kid who just wants to pitch.” [news.yahoo.com, 8/25/08; sports.espn.go.com, 8/27/08]
Cleverly mocking your school rival is part of growing up. But in Frisco, Texas, a particular T-shirt was deemed “not consistent with the standards of sportsmanship.” It displayed four local school logos as: Wakeland (“the good”) The parents who created it claim it wasn’t meant to be literal “just as a sign saying ‘Slaughter Wakeland’ is not literal.” Parents and students of Centennial, which was labeled “bad,” didn’t mind. “It’s all rivalry” said one student. “We’ve gone pretty far in making everything benign in the interest of keeping people from getting upset,” said one parent. Letters to the website that published the article were in favor of the shirt: “Geez, what doesn’t offend someone nowadays? I get so tired of the PC world. Let the kids have some fun and a sense of humor.” “Oh please. Parents, it’s called LIFE. Would ya please stop trying to make this world a nirvana for your perfect children? Sheesh! Y’all take all the fun out of things.” “Another example of a ridiculous overreaction by clueless people who probably never played sports or had normal teenage lives themselves. It’s a T-shirt! When we lose our ability to laugh at ourselves, we lose our ability to enjoy life.” To see how a college handled a similar incident, see the next item below. [wfaa.com, 8/7/08] Instant Replay for Little League? After a SportingKids magazine survey of more than 3,000 parents, coaches, administrators, and players revealed that 80 percent believe inappropriate behavior is destroying youth sports, Little League International voted to allow instant replay during this year’s Little League World Series. Great. Instead of setting an example for other youth sports by increasing the fun aspect of the game and deemphasizing the professional win-at-any-cost attitude that has spawned a nation of out-of-control coaches and parents, the League ramped up the competitive atmosphere even more. Barry Mano, president of the National Association of Sports Officials, told Buzz Bissinger of The New York Times that the youth level is where most of the bad behavior occurs. “You have an intersection of the least skilled players, least skilled parents, and least skilled referees.” Adding instant replay to youth sports would be like giving a shot of Red Bull to parents before each contest. “All instant replay will do is create an atmosphere that is already too professional,” Bissinger wrote. “Kids should be playing for fun, not with baited breath waiting to see if the umpire blew it.” [The New York Times, 8/23/08]
To Uphold Free Speech, Sign Here Thanks Al Groh, it’s all your fault. After seven years as football coach of the University of Virginia, you compiled a 51-36 record. Not great, but not horrible. Student David Becker expected more, however, and brought a "Fire Groh" sign to a game last year. Stadium officials snatched it away, citing a prohibition banning “derogatory” signs that detract from its “positive game-day environment” policy. The policy now prohibits “all banners, signs, and flags” at all venues for all sports. Howard Wasserman of Sports-law.blogspot found four problems with that decision: 1. The fact that the school believes a blanket ban on all signs is the most constitutional approach illustrates one of the ironies of content discrimination – government is on safer ground by restricting a greater amount of speech than with a narrower restriction. 2. While banning one medium of communication (written), the university allows and encourages another (vocal). 3. The policy doesn’t define what a “sign” is. Can students write on T-shirts? Paint their bodies? 4. While the regulation is formally neutral, it clearly is motivated by a desire to stop criticism of the team, the coaches, and (indirectly) the administration – in other words, it smells like an attempt by the government to stop people from criticizing it. My prediction is that the policy is rescinded soon, at least as soon as the first lawsuit is threatened. Rick Reilly of ESPN went further: • If Virginia is serious about its blanket no-sign policy, then advertising signs must go, too: “Beer: $8” signs and “Give to the Virginia Scholarship Endowment” signs. • How ironic is it that the school was founded by Thomas Jefferson, the champion of ‘certain inalienable rights’ like free speech. The man who once wrote: ‘A little rebellion now and then is a good thing.’ • How are Virginia students supposed to express themselves about the Cavs’ 52-7 home opener loss to USC? Sign language? Hats worn at an angry angle? • If we’re worried about a ‘positive game-day environment,’ shouldn’t Groh be held to it, too? What’s positive about 52-7? • [Sports] without signs is like pretzels without salt. Who can forget these classics: "We Want a New Carr With Les Miles" [sports.espn.go.com, 9/3/08; sports-law.blogspot.com, 9/7/08]
Other conferences may boast about their sportsmanship, but the Big 10 walks the talk. In what may have been the first gathering of its kind, 70 representatives from nine universities met at the Ohio State campus for a three-day Big 10 Sportsmanship Conference. Their purpose was to build unity and pride, improve fan behavior, and find new ways to make games enjoyable.
The University of Wisconsin presented its popular “Rolling Out the Red Carpet” program, now entering its fifth year, that provides a welcoming environment for visiting teams and spectators. The initiative uses volunteer fan ambassadors on game days and assigns a staff member to provide hospitality for the visiting team. Ohio State University’s “Best Fans in the Land” promotion, started in 2006, encourages Buckeye fans to treat visitors with respect. [uwbadgers.com, 7/28/08; ohiostatebuckeyes.com, 8/28/08]
In August, the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) announced that by the end of the 2009 all tour players would have to speak English proficiently by passing an oral evaluation or face suspension. Asians won three of the four majors this year, and the tour’s 120 players include women from 26 countries, more than one third of whom are Koreans. Many of these players can’t speak English well enough to be understood in interviews or when making acceptance speeches, causing concern among fans, the media, and sponsors. Deputy Commissioner Libba Galloway defended the decision by saying, “Organizations and businesses have the right to make requirements on skill sets necessary for their employers.” A blogger on sports-law.blogspot concurred: “Participation in post-game press conferences is mandatory in many sports. Players are frequently disciplined for not showing up or. When the LPGA hires a spokesperson, can they insist that the person speak English? When they hire staff to direct the spectators around the golf course, can they insist the staff speak English?” On the other side of the fairway, so to speak, the 2009 tour will visit Korea, Thailand, Singapore, China, and Japan – and American players won’t be required to speak the local language. “You should be out here based on your play, not what language you speak,” said Stacy Lewis, an American trying to make the tour. “Does this rule entail that a deaf player who couldn’t speak English wouldn’t be able to play on the tour?” asked a sports-law.blogspot reader. “So then, purses aren’t awarded until the press conference has been judged?” asked another. Last month, Commissioner Carolyn Bivens rescinded the policy, acknowledging that the LPGA had received “valuable feedback from a variety of constituents” regarding the decision. Translation: All hell broke loose. Not to mention the fact that revenue from Korean television is the LPGA’s biggest single source of annual income. [Los Angeles Times, 9/2/08; sports-law.blogspot.com, 8/28/08, 9/5/08; sports.espn.go.com, 9/10/08]
Paralympic Cheaters The joyful games – the Paralympics – recently concluded in Beijing, and the results are in: They’re even more devious cheats than their Olympic cousins. Four disabled athletes were kicked out of the 2008 Games for testing positive for drugs or using a masking agent, but 175 were “reclassified” for faking or overstating their level of impairment. Classification is to the Paralympics what doping is to the Olympics. Two other common cheating techniques are “boosting” and “bounding.” Boosting is the dangerous practice by paralyzed athletes of traumatizing their body before competition to generate a surge in adrenalin: sitting on tacks, nails, or ball bearings; shutting off their catheter to create a backflow to the kidneys; tying a wire around their genitals, etc. The athletes have no feeling in these parts of the body, but the methods can increase performance by 15-25 percent. Bounding is the opposite. In this technique, athletes try to make themselves appear more disabled so they’ll be put in an easier class. Cerebral palsy athletes have been known to jump up and down for an hour before their classification test so they’ll appear less stable. The worst scandal in Paralympics history occurred in Sydney in 2000 when 10 members of the 12-man intellectually disabled Spanish basketball team, which won the gold medal, were later found to have no mental impairment. The International Paralympic Committee removed all such events in Athens in 2004 and Beijing in 2008. [8/29/08; cheatorbeat.com, 9/18/08]
Remember the mini-controversy over who won the Olympics? According to the International Olympic Committee, China did because the IOC ranks by gold medals. The U.S., on the other hand, ranks dominance by total medal count. By that measure, America won. But Noel S. Williams of Opinioneditorials.com says there are other ways to determine the overall victor. What about size of the country? Shouldn’t a smaller country that wins a higher proportion of medals than a much larger country get consideration? By that reasoning, the true winner was…the Bahamas. (The U.S. would be 40th and China 59th.) What about human rights? Freedom House rates countries on their political rights and civil liberties. By their method, America won again with 220 points, more than twice as much as second-place England. Rich countries have many advantages over poor ones, so Williams suggests using the same system as above by applying GDP instead. Guess who was number one then – North Korea. Which determinant is best? The fairest way may be to combine all methods: gold medals, total medals, population, human rights, and GDP. The final winner: Crikey, it’s Australia! [opinioneditorials.com, 8/30/08]
Don’t Talk Trash About Naples When a Napoli soccer fan attended a match against rival Inter Milan last October in Milan, he was “deeply hurt” by signs that disparaged his hometown, Naples. One banner called it the “sewer of Italy.” Another said “Ciao, cholera sufferers!” Both referred to the prolonged garbage strike in Naples that caused tons of rotting garbage to pile up on its streets. The fan raised a stink by suing Inter Milan for “existential damage.” A Naples court agreed and ordered the club to pay him $2,200 plus legal fees. [Los Angeles Times] AARP has turned down John McEnroe’s application for a membership card after determining he won’t reach the age of maturity for some time to come. We can only wish. At the Hall of Fame Champions Cup in Newport, Rhode Island, the 49-year-old tennis commentator and senior tour player was thrown out of a match after multiple warnings for obscenity failed to calm him down. A controversial line call triggered his outburst, and when it dragged on, the crowd got into it. When McEnroe gave them a “visible obscene gesture,” he was booted. The following day, he told reporters, “I could go out and play a clean match and people will ask why I didn’t get mad. If people are interested because they heard something happened, I guess it’s a positive.” [downthelinetennis.com, 8/15/08]
Iowa Kids Show How It’s Done With 90 seconds remaining in the junior varsity football game between PCM and Albia high schools last month in Monroe, Iowa, a PCM player went down with a serious injury. An ambulance was summoned. As everyone waited, Albia offered to terminate the game. But PCM’s players said no. They told both coaches that, in the time remaining, they wanted to give Albia player Kile Weiss, a student with special needs, a chance to score. PCM quarterback Brandon Kain met with Albia’s coaches and officials and told them what he wanted to do. When the game resumed, Kain fumbled in Kile’s direction. Everyone rose and cheered as Kile picked up the ball and ran 60 yards for a touchdown. “There is more to educational athletics than winning, and this situation was initiated by some solid good young men who understand that,” wrote Iowa High School Athletic Association information director Bud Legg to media outlets afterward. “It reinforces the fact that when it comes to doing the right thing, ‘the kids get it.’ There weren’t many dry eyes after the game. The adults ‘got it’ also.” [jtlinder.wordpress.com, 9/10/08]
Last month, Joe Tiedemann posted on his blog (lifeintheway.com) an account of his daughter Gabrielle’s first youth triathlon (100-yard swim, 2.4 mile bike ride, ¼ mile run) at Lums Pond Youth Triathlon in Bear, Delaware. He was nervous for her because she “doesn’t do more than doggy paddle” and her borrowed brother’s bike didn’t go very fast. The swim race started, and by the 50-yard turn she was in last place, But she was encouraged by lifeguards and volunteers. During the bike portion, a volunteer accompanied her, all the time urging her on. She finished even further behind. By the time she started the run, no one was left on the course. “Then something amazing happened,” Tiedemann wrote. “As she made it to the halfway point, the announcer on the PA system said, ‘Our last racer has started on the run course. Her name is Gabrielle. Why don’t you make your way over to the finish line and cheer Gabrielle on.’ “At that moment, a sea of people moved from the awards area to the finish line. As she entered her last 75 yards, everyone started cheering, people were calling her name, cow bells were clanging. In all my life, this race was the greatest expression of sportsmanship I have experienced. “After the race, my daughter said, ‘Dad, even though that was my first race, it was the greatest race ever!’” [lifeintheway.com, 9/1/08]
When Silver Creek High School of San Jose, California, met Homestead in football last month, its team was clearly outmatched. Afterward, freshman/sophomore football coach Ed Guerra wrote Homestead’s team and coaches a letter. Among the highlights: • The Homestead coaching staff assessed the situation and began, early in the second quarter, to substitute players from the bench to not drive up the score or show unnecessary domination. |
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