Should Signs Urging Home Teams to Vanquish Visiting Teams Be Prohibited?
FRONT ROW YOUTH- AND SCHOOL-BASED SPORTS Are Violent Coaches the Wave of the Future? Kids who sign up for sports today may not like what they see on the horizon: coaches hitting players (Kansas State basketball coach Frank Martin), locking them in sheds (former Texas Tech football coach Mike Leach), verbally abusing players (former Kansas football coach Mark Mangino), and grabbing a player by the throat and slapping him (former University of South Florida football coach Jim Leavitt). Aurora Sentinel managing editor Aaron Cole writes that the ranks of abusive coaches are growing, and it usually starts at home. “It stems from a disconnection between what parents see as the value of sports and why children engage in sports in the first place.” Many parents, he says, view athletic programs as a competition. “Some view participation as a competition between the child and other peers, between the child and themselves, and more dangerously, between the child and the parent when they played th
