How Sports Can Help End Violence
Lately, we have experienced a surge of violence around youth -- in the realm of sports, and beyond. It is time we consider how coaches, parents and school administrators can shape the youth and high school sports experience to heal communities, prevent violence and develop character in youth.
Here in Chicago, recent examples of youth violence include the grisly videotaped murder of Derrion Albert. It also includes last month's on-field brawl between the North Chicago High School and Simeon High School football teams, which canceled the game in the first quarter and led to a one-game suspension/forfeit for North Chicago and an apologetic press conference by North Chicago coach and former Chicago Bears player Glen Kozlowski.
Nationally, last week a youth football coach outside Boston was charged with aggravated assault and battery stemming from an altercation with a player's father. The dad brought his 12-year-old son to practice 10 minutes late. When the coach ordered the player to run laps, the dad objected and his argument with the coach turned physical, leaving the dad with a fractured eye socket, broken nose, and torn rotator cuff. Another dispute between parent and coach over playing time for a Davis, California high school field hockey player also ended in fisticuffs and bloodshed.
It is a shame and a horror when anyone suffers from violence. As a high school athletic director, it is especially galling when violence occurs in the context of sports, because sports, perhaps more than any other activity, actually lends itself to character education.
No activity impassions more Americans than sports. Sport so enraptures the public that our youth and high school athletes are a captive audience -- perhaps more captive than in a classroom or house of worship -- for life lessons in persistence, teamwork, courage, compassion and many other traits that mark contributing members of our society.
Yet those opportunities are too often squandered by individuals and institutions that care so little for youth that their environment allows for the murder of a Derrion Albert. Just as problematic, are the too many coaches who are ideally positioned to aid youth through the magical character education properties of sport, but instead succumb to ego and a win-at-all-cost mentality.
In September, we at Niles North High School had a problem. In the week before our football game against Evanston Township High School, an ETHS student named Dashaun Davy was stabbed to death in Skokie. We changed the date of the game to allow Dashaun's classmates to mourn him in dignity, rather than facing the incongruity of a funeral followed by a football game.
Amid these events, Niles North last month won an Honoring the Game Award from Positive Coaching Alliance, a national non-profit founded at Stanford University with the mission to "transform youth sports so sports can transform youth." Positive Coaching Alliance (PCA) gives these awards to schools and youth sports organizations throughout the U.S. that most effectively use sports to teach life lessons.
As part of our effort to revitalize Niles North athletics, we partnered two years ago with PCA to host workshops for our coaches, players' parents and school leadership. The partnership galvanized Niles North's buy-in to the PCA precepts of educational-athletic excellence. Our scoreboards do not always display athletic dominance, but our hallways are home to players, parents, teachers, administrators and coaches who are mostly on the same page about what is important in sports.
This year, we expanded our PCA partnership to create a community consortium among local government, park-and-recreations programs, and the youth sports organizations and middle schools that feed into Niles North. We are confident this bodes well for achieving both our goals as PCA-trained Double-Goal Coaches: winning, and more importantly, teaching life lessons through sports. This is critical in our community because our school district's tremendous ethnic and socio-economic diversity does present significant challenges to our efforts to establish a unifying athletic culture.
Nothing will bring back Derrion Albert or Dashaun Davy. But sports can be a key to both healing communities and preventing future violence. If we can stop the madness within youth and high school sports, putting character-education of youth ahead of adult ego and a win-at-all-cost mentality, then sport can be a safe haven for youth in this generation and beyond.
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Kari,
Many thanks for this wonderful article that highlights so thoroughly how much more work is needed in the area of youth sports, but also showcases the terrific efforts y9ou and your colleagues are making to help "transform youth sports so that sports can transform youth." As a PCA champion and former PCA employee, competitive athlete and parent of three student-athletes, I believe with all my heart that PCA's principles can truly make a difference -- one that goes beyond the athletic field and underscores to athletes, parents and coaches what true winning really is. Congratulations to you for your PCA Award. .I was with PCA when this award program first began, and I am thrilled at the caliber of organizations who deservedly are being recognized. Keep up this important work. As the examples you cite in your article confirm, we have much still to do.
Congrats to Ken for speaking out and setting the tenor for his school and being a role model for others to follow.
Sports can and does impart some life lessons for kids - however, the lessons can be either good or bad. It all depends on what is being "learned" and who is doing the teaching. Coaches, schools, communities and parents all have a role to play in helping kids learn the right life lessons and keeping the proper perspective.
Coaches have an incredible impact on youth whether they are paid or volunteers. EVERY coach should be keenly aware of the impact they have on kids. Youth sports organizations and schools/school systems also play a key role in recruiting/sensitizing their coaches and laying out expectations for their conduct. League boards and school administrators need to create value system and then enforce/reinforce it. If the right individuals are hired, people know what is expected of them, and there is regular follow-up then many issues can be mitigated.
League boards and school administrators need to clearly communicate their expectations, standards, codes of conduct, etc. to parents too. All constituents involved in teaching kids through sports need to know the ground rules. Unfortunately, too often these ground rules aren't fully set up, communicated or enforced so a permissive atmosphere of tolerance is unwittingly created. Thus, problems occur leaving everyone in shock as to how such an incident could have happened.
Scott Barnum
Menlo - Atherton, CA Little League
Great article, Karl - and kudos on a great effort to set and maintain excellent standards in all elements of your athletic program at Niles North. As you are well aware, communities large and small rally around their sports teams - from little league through the professional ranks. When a tone is set around these teams (by coaches, players and parents alike) that promotes or allows violence, selfishness, self-promotion and other similar behaviors, it can send a message that these behaviors are acceptable by all.
My organization, Headfirst Camps based in Washington, DC has benefitted greatly from our longstanding relationship and partnership with the Positive Coaching Alliance. The PCA has given us the tools - and continues to help us refine them - to address all of these issues and to get all participants (from the youngest player to most experienced coach to most vocal parent) on the same page and to build a culture where positive energy reigns supreme. On-field brawls and parent v. coach brouhahahs don't sponteneously combust in environments where players, coaches, opponents and officials are respected and where the game is honored. They happen when positive culture erodes (or doesn't exist) and focus is on winning before it is on development.
Karl's program at Niles North is a great role model for all. March on, Vikings!
Brendan Sullivan
Founder & Executive Director
Headfirst Camps
www.playheadfirst.com
Karl,
Your article brought out a mix of emotions in me - sadness at the death of the two young men, anger that the type of behavior that led to their deaths is still going on, and hope that things can change for the better because of organizations like Positive Coaching Alliance. I commend you and Niles North for partnering with PCA and taking tangible steps to turn the tide. I've been involved with PCA since 2001, including as a 2004 recipient of an Honoring the Game award and currently as a PCA champion, and have witnessed first hand the good that can come from following the organization's principles of honoring the game and showing respect for others. It can be a slow process, as cultural change is apt to be, but I see you're addressing this challenge head on. The community consortium approach is great as it broadens your base of support while also hardwiring PCA into your local programs. I wish you godspeed.
Ward Kanowsky
Karl,
Great article and it is great to hear how the PCA movement has spread throughout the community. I am a PCA Champion and I believe it makes a difference when the high school leads the way for the community groups. PCA is a great asset to our youth sports culture and enhances the athletic experience of the participants.
Continued Success!
Great article Karl, and very well timed. I agree with your comment about how sports, more than anything else, lends itself to character education. I think that sports is the last great bastion to promote positive values of sportsmanship, leadership, integrity, and character development. It is an uphill battle. At this very moment, I am watching on TV the video of high school girls fighting on a soccer field, just a few days after the hair-pulling incident.
I am concerned that while I am watching incidents such as this in the media, I very rarely see any stories such as yours demonstrating all the “right” things that are happening in sports in society today. I applaud your actions to re-schedule the game. By doing so, you were honoring both the game and your opponents by allowing them to grieve for their slain classmate.
Just as much, I applaud PCA for recognizing your actions by honoring you with an award. I am a very strong advocate of PCA and their mission to promote character development through sports. I have been a coach of over seven sports in a span of 28 years. Just a few years ago, I ran across PCA and was immediately impressed with their mission. Their philosophy is something I had been personally following my entire career.
Thanks again to you and organizations like PCA who continue to “honor the game.”
Karl, nice article! As a parent, I always worry about out-of-control sports parents - if these parents lose control on the sidelines, do they lose control at home?
I'm a PCA champion for the Positive Coaching Alliance. It's fantastic to see you're spreading awareness for character-building through sports.
Congratulations on your PCA award!
Dear Mr. Costello,
I think you are to be commended for what you've done as an Athletic Director. You obviously recognize that through sports, there is a tremendous opportunity to to positively influence our young student-athletes. When that message comes from someone in a leadership position, i.e. an administrator, Coach, Athletic Director, it helps to eliminate the "winning-at-all-cost" mentality that is hurting our kids. Positive Coaching Alliance is changing the culture of youth sports and I'm glad to hear you have partnered with PCA for the well being of the youth in your community. The stories of violence in our communities, including the deaths of these youngsters are disturbing. One might wonder how a connection can be made between the violence in our communities and youth sports - how does a coach make a difference for better or worse? I think you answer the question when you write, " If we can stop the madness within youth and high school sports, putting character-education of youth ahead of adult ego and a win-at-all-cost mentality, then sport can be a safe haven for youth in this generation and beyond." Best of luck to you and keep up the good work!
Marianne Akerland
Sacramento, Ca
I'm a big fan of Positive Coaching Alliance. I've had the pleasure of coaching in a league that uses Positive Coaching Alliance methods are it was a joy coaching. Thank you Positive Coaching Alliance for all you do for our youth sports programs.
As Karl points out violence occurs In and out of school as well as on an off the field or court.
What I think is most important from his article is specifically addressing a point of influence in youth through sports. Obviously all youth are not athletes but youth athletics involve millions of kids across the country.
I do not know of a better confluence between youth and good citizenship then youth athletics. And I must say being a PCA Champion that his community’s promulgation of good sportsmanship through the Positive Coaching Alliance should be applauded, as well as an example for sports organizations and communities across our country.
“One man practicing sportsmanship is far better than fifty preaching it.”
Knute Rockne
I'm a big fan of Positive Coaching Alliance. I've had the pleasure of coaching in a league that uses Positive Coaching Alliance methods are it was a joy coaching. Thank you Positive Coaching Alliance for all you do for our youth sports programs.
Karl,
Good luck with the journey. I applaud what you are trying to do for the kids and your community. We adopted the PCA approach 8+ years ago in the Pomperaug Boys Youth Lacrosse Program. We now too have it implemented in all of our youth sports programs in Southbury, CT. Each program implements the concepts to the degree of their leadership’s commitment. That being said, having each program believe that the “game” is for the players and not the parents and coaches is a huge step.
This is our 8th + year. I wish I could tell you that it gets easier. It doesn’t. But, the amazing joy comes when your coaches get it on their own, or your players kid you about an “un-positive comment” that slips out once in a while, or you see that moment of true sportsmanship on the field, or your parents support your team instead of complaining about the problems with the team,.
By starting with the youth programs, you have a chance, over time to help in the high school age. Last year was our first year that we had freshmen players that have had the PCA experience throughout their entire career. Only time will tell how they do. But one thing for sure, I am glad we tried and have given these kids a chance to have their game back.
Good luck to you and your community.
Tom Archie
Former Co-President PYL
Assistant Boys Varsity Lacrosse Coach Pomperaug High School
I am currently in my 39th season of coaching with nearly as many season involved in the administration side of youth and high school sports programs. Though at times it can be a slow process, the benefits of changing the mental model of what sport is meant to be, will pay dividends down the road. It takes patience and hard work but once the change begins it will gain momentum and the impact that this change makes on the lives of all involved will quickly become clear.
As a long time PCA member and one of PCA's 2008 National Youth Sports Coach Award winners, I have been a strong advocate for change in and through youth sports. I often read about and speak on the issues at the heart of the PCA movement. In my opinion, the change we all seek in youth sports is expedited and empowered when these issues are addressed in business and political venues.
As a business leader, it is both refreshing and motivating to see these issues and the PCA movement addressed and debated in the Huffington Post.
Karl, Kudos to you for placing compassion and sportsmanship ahead of winning and gamesmanship! You set an outstanding example for our youth in demonstrating to them what is truly important in life. I also applaud your leadership in extending the PCA philosophy throughout your community. I know from experience that instilling a consistent philosophy from recreation leagues to scholastic competition is no easy task. I have been affiliated with the Positive Coaching Alliance since 2005 and have seen a slow but steady trend in the the adoption of good sportsmanship by organizational policy and practicep and not simply by individual coaches on a case by case basis. I have no doubt that your efforts in conjunction with others who believe as you do, will go a long way in establishing good sportsmanship as a defact standard of behavior.
After a 33 year coaching career, from Junior high through college, I saw the changes in attitudes regarding the role of sports in schools and communities. Positive Coaching Alliance is helping articulate the place sports has in the overall education of children. Congratulations Karl on getting your community involved in PCA. Having the community behind you when you confront inappropriate behavior at games says "that's not the way we do things here". As PCA teaches, changing the culture takes courage,but it also takes coaches, players,parents, administrators, and fans working toward the same goal. As an AD, Karl recognized this early , and his community is all the better for it.
Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/karl-costello/how-sports-can-help-end-v_b_348735.html&cp
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