What Our Young Athletes Learn From Pro Sports

When have you ever seen a pro athlete attack an official? I'm sorry, but your thread title is astonishingly misguided.

As an amateur sports referee myself, I take things like this very seriously.
 
So you don't think that the current trend of pro athletes breaking rules and/or laws and getting away with little or no punishment has anything to do with those two's behavior?

And what's a being a ref have to do with it?
 
So you don't think that the current trend of pro athletes breaking rules and/or laws and getting away with little or no punishment has anything to do with those two's behavior?

I'm not sure I do. Encourage them to cheat, yeah. Encourage them to attack an official? I think that's a stretch.

Reprehensible behavior, no question. What is this world coming to?

bs
 
Encourage them to attack an official? I think that's a stretch.

So encouraging your players to "disable" opponents is OK? (can you say "New Orleans?")

The "point" isn't that they hit a ref - rather that they somehow seemed to think it was the appropriate thing to do. In this day and age of letting people who do crap like this off the hook, the fear of retaliation/punishment isn't what it should be.
 
This video is horrible!!! But what do we expect? Coaches are under a lot of pressure to win, In Order to win you bring in players of questionable character with a particular high skill set to help you win. That's how coaches keep their jobs. In college , same thing except then balance it with enough players with good grades to keep the avg high enough to hit the minimum required and then you go pro and how many there are outright criminals but who cares cause they can throw a ball or run fast and now it's more about the money in the owners pockets than the coach keeping his job. A coach with integrity would never have had these kids on his team. He would have weeded them out long before something like this ever occurred. When I played ball there were life lessons being taught by the coaches to all the kids at all grade levels and winning was always important but integrity was always more important. Most kids don't go pro so those life lessons about integrity were learned and passed on to the next generation when we became the coaches as well as in our daily lives.
Win at any cost allowed those kids to be part of that team.
 
Encourage them to attack an official?

I never said I thought they were encouraged to plow the official. I just think they were of the mind that any punishment they received would be minimal, them being great football players and all. A cut above, so to speak.
 
So encouraging your players to "disable" opponents is OK? (can you say "New Orleans?")

The "point" isn't that they hit a ref - rather that they somehow seemed to think it was the appropriate thing to do. In this day and age of letting people who do crap like this off the hook, the fear of retaliation/punishment isn't what it should be.

Point taken wrt New Orleans, but they weren't let off the hook, were they? I seem to remember Sean Payton serving a one year suspension, and I thought there were other ramifications.

The slap on the wrist penalties have been mostly cheating related, no? Although I guess, come to think of it, there have been a lot of overturned domestic violence suspensions lately..

"I'm not a role model... Just because I dunk a basketball doesn't mean I should raise your kids." - Charles Barkley

I've always thought that most athletes make terrible role models, and have always discouraged my kids from thinking of them as such.

bs
 
I never said I thought they were encouraged to plow the official. I just think they were of the mind that any punishment they received would be minimal, them being great football players and all. A cut above, so to speak.

In my opinion, the youth sports scene has more to do with these things than any professional role models.

I had a nephew who went through the youth sports scene, kind of a superstar in high school. His team went pretty far in the Little League world series, and won the Babe Ruth world series the following year. (Mark Shorey, you can look him up. His team mate Jeff Allison was drafted 17th overall by the Florida Marlins, my nephew was a late round draft choice the prior year.)

My observation was that while they may have idolized certain major league players, they weren't mature enough to be learning lessons from them, or associating any of their behavior with whatever penalties were or were not handed down or enforced.

On the other hand, they were being taught first hand that they could do whatever the hell they wanted to, and there would be no ramifications whatsoever. Drug use? Encouraged. Vandalism? No problem. Rape? We can make that go away.

Allison took his life lessons and a $2 million dollar signing bonus, along with multiple chances at redemption, and wasted away in various crack houses. My nephew progressed through the minor leagues, but ultimately got tossed before he could crack the big leagues. I'm sure his self entitled attitude and other well documented bad behavior had something to do with major league teams not wanting to take a chance on him. I'm not sure where Allison is today, but I know my nephew is continuing to pi$$ his life away, doesn't have a dollar to his name, free loads and steals from family members, all the while continuing to blame anybody and everybody else for his problems, and waiting for somebody to step in and make everything all right.

He didn't learn those lessons from any professional athletes. He was taught first hand by high school coaches and school administrators.

bs
 
Looks like they might have had some "encouragement" from an assistant coach who is now on administrative leave pending the investigation.

These kids may feel some entitlement just being a part of youth/high school sports but if they think they can get away with whatever they want while playing on a perennial 3- or 4-win team, they are pretty delusional.

The UIL, who regulates high school sports in Texas, is reporting that there have been two other incidents like this, the most recent during a playoff game in 2008 - a referee was knocked to the ground by a player.
 
I coached wrestling at the HS level....I kicked 10 kids off the team for thinking they were "untouchables", Fielded at team of 6 wrestlers and lost every match because of the defaults. I was called on the carpet by the AD and the parents of the kids I removed. I told the AD he had a choice...have a team of kids who valued themselves and the rep of the school or kick me out and let the "bad apples" run the wrestling room. I brought to light to each parent why their "little angels" were removed from the team...3 of them for smoking pot in the parking lot before practice. I didn't get questioned again. Sometimes your integrity as a coach is more important than your necessity to keep the parents placated.
 
Reminds me of Aaron Hernandez and all the free passes he got up thru the Pat's. He could play, being a thug and suspected multimurderer didn't seem to matter.

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In my opinion, the youth sports scene has more to do with these things than any professional role models.

From what I've seen, I'd agree wholeheartedly. Look at that mess in Steubenville, OH.

If someone in the NFL targeted a game official, they would easily get a season suspension, if not a lifetime ban. Hell, I've seen players get ejected from games because someone else hit them and caused them to contact an official.

So you don't think that the current trend of pro athletes breaking rules and/or laws and getting away with little or no punishment has anything to do with those two's behavior?

Examples? Outside of the constant mishandling of just about anything by the idiot running the NFL, I don't see examples of pro athletes "getting away with" much of anything, especially these days.

And what's a being a ref have to do with it?

It means I have a bit different perspective on things than people who have never put on stripes and tried to figure out what's going on in the middle of an athletic competition. People who have never had a player or coach in their face, screaming about them about a call or non-call in front of a crowd, and trying to maintain professionalism and decorum in that situation. People who have never had to decide if a team's star player, or their coach, has done something warranting an expulsion from the game. It can be quite difficult.
 
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This has little to do with sports. The setting could have been anywhere. Somebody had an obligation to raise those kids right. Doesn't excuse their criminal behavior, but explains it.
 
Organized sports are a cancer upon the world. So much emphasis on winning some pointless goal without any attention paid to the negative aspects. Its supposed to be a game, not a life and death winner-take-all war with no regard to collateral damage.
 
Organized sports are a cancer upon the world. So much emphasis on winning some pointless goal without any attention paid to the negative aspects. Its supposed to be a game, not a life and death winner-take-all war with no regard to collateral damage.

Over simplified,but on the right track.Sort of.....( IMO of course).....:yes:
** how's that for double talk ? **

I've seen organized sports programs be very helpful in the development of young people.
A LOT depends on the coaching staff. ( both amateur and pro )

Now.....the whole idea that you can make millions for playing a sport,along with the ''you can get away with anything when you're rich'' mentality (reality? )
is the real blight on society.
Then there's the whole '' if I don't get my way I'll just sue you'' thing. . :thumbsdn:

When have you ever seen a pro athlete attack an official?

Yeah,if anything the pros are taught to avoid them.BUT,it does happen.
I'm thinking baseball mostly,and mostly verbal. . :D
 
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Organized sports are a cancer upon the world. So much emphasis on winning some pointless goal without any attention paid to the negative aspects. Its supposed to be a game, not a life and death winner-take-all war with no regard to collateral damage.

A cancer upon the world? Really? You must work at the Department of Hyperbole.

I played organized sports as a kid, my kids did, and I coached a little bit. It's true that some place too much pressure on kids to win, parents more than coaches nowadays, but in my direct experience most don't. A yardstick of how well we did as coaches was how many kids enjoyed the sport enough to want to keep playing at the next level up.

Besides too much emphasis on winning, what other "negative aspects" and "collateral damage" are you referring to? I admit that two real concerns currently are concussions and overbearing parents.
 
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A cancer upon the word? Really? You must work at the Department of Hyperbole.

I played organized sports as a kid, my kids did, and I coached a little bit. It's true that some place too much pressure on kids to win, but in my direct experience most don't.

A yardstick of how well we did as coaches was how many kids enjoyed the sport enough to want to keep playing at the next level up.

Besides too much emphasis on winning, what other "negative aspects" and "collateral damage" are you referring to? I admit that two real concerns nowadays are concussions and overbearing parents.

:tresbon:

I was at a small gathering about a month ago_One of the guys was bragging about how good his son is at football.
He played in high school too.....yadda... yadda...
Then he starts describing how his son hit someone so hard during tryouts that the other kid not only wouldn't be playing on the team this year but had to be checked for a concussion.
''I taught him how to hit......''.....:sigh:
I sat there listening to this for a few minutes and decided since I was a guest I would just leave it alone,I excused myself to take a leak and found a new seat.
How can you be proud that your child injured another just to ''make the team''.....what kind of team do you have with players like that ?
And PLEASE do not tell me a winning one. . :no:
 
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I watched some 10-12 year-olds take infield practice and listened to the coach as he shouted instructions AND praise. If a kid messed up he came right back to him with a "Let's try that again." Good stuff and probably repeated nationwide.
When these same kids watch ARod...or someone similar.. hit a homer I have no idea what they're thinking. I'd like to think their coach is having more influence.
 
The college I went to, I'm not gonna mention the name, but their initials were "University Of Richmond", they were trying very HARD to compete w/the Virginias, Carolinas, Marylands of the world. Some of the athletes were good guys, but quite a few, I wouldn't trust 'em in the Shithouse w/a muzzle on. Entitled? Look THAT up in the dictionary, & you saw a pic of the various UR Teams. Arrogant. Yeah, buddy... There was ONE dorm the basketball guys lived in, the way the campus was laid out, one of the main footpaths was thru the ground floor. UR had a TOUGH drug policy-You were caught, you were GONE, no question. Unless you were a Jock, of course. The one dorm where we ALL walked thru, they lived on the 3rd floor, the damn place REEKED of Pot even on the GROUND floor. The jocks ate SPECIAL food, that the rest of us only DREAMED of. It would have STUNG a little LESS if we had had SUPERLATIVE teams, but sadly, we DIDN'T. Most of these knotheads were on some sort of scholarship, too-UR was a pretty expensive place to go to school. A lot of 'em, too, got "Help" on their grades & classes, which made the people who were actually there to Get An Education pretty mad. I dunno-I guess this kind of crap goes on about everywhere. Still don't make it right, or any easier to swallow... I was pretty good friends w/the quarterback one year. He was honest, & would talk about this stuff, & HE didn't much like it, either, even if he benefitted from it. Damn, that boy could throw a football, though...(grin)
 
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