Bully Coaches

Once, when I was eighteen, I was running laps around my local middle school track. It was August and late afternoon. I looked over in an adjacent field to see a football team practicing, fully uniformed with helmets and pads. And there was a half-crazed coach running around among the players, screaming at individuals and creating a general atmosphere of intimidation. No, of course this wasn’t college or even high school football. But it wasn’t even a middle school team. The boys being verbally harassed were about five-six years old! And the coach towered over these little children.

I see this phenomenon of overly-aggressive coaches loudly spewing their anger at their players’ perceived imperfections a lot. The little kiddie tackle football team (that in itself is kind of weird to me) was an extreme example, but I see it going on a lot in middle school and high school, too. I understand that one of the important aspects of team sports is for the players to learn how to play in an organized, disciplined way as well as to learn how to take orders from authorities (i.e. coaches) and effectively translate them into action. But this can be accomplished without bullying.

It’s been a while since I’ve gone to a game involving kids and “adult” coaches, even on a level as informal as flag football, and seen the players actually acting as if they’re having fun. Almost always, the tension level is excruciatingly high, and the coach, even one who is relatively competent and “easy” on the kids, tends to make the game (whatever it is, be it basketball, football, etc.) much more complicated than it really has to be.

When a little boy (or girl) is on the basketball court, (s)he cannot truly participate in the game in the way that it was meant to be played if the coach is on the sideline continually yelling out this or that instruction or criticism. This overdoing it, I believe, is an almost universal tendency among coaches. But some have a character issue as well: these are bullies, pure and simple.

When I am watching a high school girl’s game where one coach is badgering not only his own players, but also loudly questioning the referee’s calls and even knocking down his own chair (even when the game’s outcome is no longer in question), I conclude that this man should not be in a position of authority over children like this. It’s one thing to feel a sense of mission toward helping young people do well in sports. It’s another to deliberately put oneself in a position of authority over young people in order to have somebody in their lives to lord themselves over!

Of course, coaches are supposed to do their jobs with the aim of actually winning games. But they are not just teaching successful game strategies and teamwork to their young players. They are also teaching them what to expect from people in positions of authority after they grow up. And the lesson I’ve been seeing imparted too often in organized children’s team sports is that authority figures are loud, mean, abusive bullies! Thankfully, my children have had more nurturing coaches who know what it’s really all about!