Notre Dame's football coach: not the best example for our youth

We expect appropriate behavior from youth sports coaches in this day and age.

It’s not good enough that they just show up: we place an expectation with regard to and a value on not only the skills they have and are able to share, but their overall comportment.  As in, how they behave, the example they set and the language they use when interacting with impressionable youngsters.

So it’s fair to say that the bar should be set even higher when talking about college coaches.

I was among those who thought that Notre Dame football coach Brian Kelly’s language and behavior on the sidelines during the team’s opening’s game a week ago was just plain poor, and a sad example for our youth.  (I'm guessing it's all over You Tube by now...)  This from an individual who holds one of the most prestigious jobs in sports and is paid handsomely to do so.

And it’s no excuse to say, as he evidently did, that he wasn’t aware he would be on television so much.  Coaches are always shown on television, and everyone knows it—Kelly included. 

Kelly came to Notre Dame after what I thought was a less than forthcoming departure from his previous school (see my earlier blog post on our Prospect Communications site). He handled that situation very poorly, as well.

While I understand that the focus is always on “winning” at the NCAA level, surely any school, and one would think Notre Dame as an academic institution, believes in values, too.

I wonder how many parents of young prospective Notre Dame student-athletes saw Kelly on television and wondered, “is that going to be the right environment for my son…?”

Forget their current (0 and 2) record; this latest episode makes one wonder if the school got the “right guy” when they were looking for a new coach less than two years ago.

What youth sports can be….

On this site, we write about the values that we try to promote when we do our day-to-day advisory work with clients through our firm, Prospect Communications Inc.

It’s easy to use phrases like teamwork, real team-player, good communication and positive values but much harder to not only discuss but actually live the kind of values that make youth sports a great experience for the very people they are there for:  our kids.

We noticed an article in the National Post over the Labour Day weekend.  It is entitled, simply:  "What youth sports can do.  The true sports report".

One excerpt in particular caught our eye.  It reads as follows:

The vast majority of Canadians (nine out of 10) recognize that community sport can be an enormous force for good – and they want it to be. But they are also very concerned that sport is falling far short of its potential. They are worried about too much aggression, cheating and unfair behaviour. They are worried about win-at-any-cost attitudes and that too many young people are leaving sport for the wrong reasons. They are worried about the negative behaviour of a fraction of parents who make it difficult for everyone else and they are worried about the influence of commercial sport values on the values of community sport.

Here's the link to the full story in the National Post

Words alone can’t do it.  But if we act on some of the basic ideas presented in this article, then coaches, parents, as well as youth and amateur sports administrators—those who are truly the caregivers and the gate-keepers of youth sports—can continue to take the steps needed to keep sports fun and a wonderful experience for all of our kids.

We won't always get it right, but we can aim high.

Too much competition, too soon?

There will always be debate about when young kids who participate in youth sports should (if ever) start taking it “seriously”?

Like most people, I’ve been to hockey rinks and soccer fields where kids barely old enough to run, it seems are competing against one another, to see who wins and loses a game.

The focus seems to be on “winning”, not developing skills or just good old-fashioned enjoyment.

When I was a youngster, back in the late 1950s and early ‘60s, I lived in a very small town.  We had a lot of “pick-up” games.  My sports were baseball and hockey.  In winter, we would get together on weekends and grab a big snow shovel, clear off a patch on the river that wound its way through and around our small village—and play.

Same in the summer.  Whoever was available would get together, all ages, and play at our local ball diamond.  Everyone was welcome.  Younger kids got the slower pitches to hit.  Bigger kids faced a bit more of a challenge.

Of course, the world has changed and we are much more “organized” about the way we view and handle youth sports.  Some of that is good.  There is (usually) better coaching, more safety awareness, just generally more education around sport.

At the same time, we have lost some spontaneity, for sure, as kids are often pushed into highly competitive situations.  Many “burn out” quite young.

In short, because of parents, coaches, too many tournaments or just too much pressure, they quit.  They lose the natural love they once had for the sport.

While I don’t agree with all the views expressed in the following piece from a writer at ESPN, it’s a worthwhile read:

http://espn.go.com/espn/commentary/story/_/page/keown-110823/elite-travel-baseball-basketball-teams-make-youth-sports-industrial

It never hurts to look in the mirror and see if our own values around youth sport need some re-adjusting…

Young athletes need to be aware of the risks of Twitter use

There are so many examples of the challenges of using “twitter” properly that it’s difficult to pick just a few.

But just recently, a well-known Canadian Football League player, Henry Burris of the Calgary Stampeders (who previously played for the Chicago Bears in the NFL), was alleged to have used some highly inappropriate language on his Twitter account.

Burris denied that it was him, the suggestion being that his account must have been “hacked” in some fashion.

As this story was unfolding, a Mississippi State NCAA football player was thrown off the team (and presumably saw his scholarship taken away) when he publicly blasted a coaches’ decision to redshirt him (which essentially meant he would sit out the upcoming college season and not play until next year) via his Twitter account.

Society has fought for freedom of expression, and that is a precious right.  And Twitter and related social media tools give everyone—whether in business, entertainment, politics or on a personal level—a wonderful opportunity to share views, opinions and express themselves in interesting and often creative ways about matters important and not so important.

But we all, especially young athletes in the public eye who may find this kind of freedom of expression platform awfully tempting, still need to understand the power of the words that we use and the impact—sometimes negative—they can have.

Unfortunately, those words will sometime boomerang back against us, and cause unnecessary harm.

In a world where communication has become almost too easy at times, when it comes to social media especially, it’s wise to think twice, and maybe three times, before we “hit” the send button…

Teamwork matters—whether in youth sports or the pro game

We often post here on what may seem old-fashioned values in youth sports:  character, sportsmanship and yes, teamwork.

So it was interesting to see an article online this by the respected columnist Peter King of Sports Illustrated.  He writes about the Green Bay Packer organization, and the values it tries to uphold.  Of course, Green Bay won the National Football League Super Bowl championship at the end of the 2010 season and as importantly, presides over a heritage that has included names like Curly Lambeau, Vince Lombardi and Hall-of-Famer Bart Starr.

Now, the organization is run under the direction of General Manager Ted Thompson and Head coach Mike McCarthy.  The team leader is quarterback Aaron Rodgers.

Rodgers was supposed to be a very high first-round selection in his draft some years ago.  But he was passed-over by several teams in what became a potentially devastating and ego-deflating moment.

Then came three years of sitting on the bench, before the opportunity to start and progress as a professional player.  Yet his work ethic, attitude and leadership eventually helped lead his team to a championship just a few short months ago.

King highlights a refreshing outlook and attitude in his post:

"It's funny,'' Aaron Rodgers told me. "When I was sitting in that Green Room at the draft in New York, and I was dropping, and no one would pick me, the last thing I was thinking was it was a good thing. But I'm glad I got to fall way down. I should be here. It's the place for me. The game is bigger than us. The team is more than us. It's a community team, blue-collar and understated and not at all about self-glorification. Vince Lombardi put it that way: Winning is the only thing that matters. It's about the team.''

We're in a me-first era. In most places maybe, but not in Green Bay. Not with Thompson and McCarthy and Rodgers, the leaders of this group. I have no idea if they'll repeat (a dirty word to McCarthy, who thinks every year is a new year with new players), but I do know they've created a model that every youth coach, every high school coach, every college coach and, yes, a whole lot of pro coaches would be smart to emulate. It's not just something they say in front of the minicams, and then sneak off to New York to make a commercial for Visa. It's who they are.

It’s not fair, perhaps, to expect youngsters to have that mature an attitude at an early age.  Rodgers himself had to grow in terms of humility and self-awareness—and he was a grown man, an adult.

But youth coaches can certainly share this kind of article by Peter King with their young players,  if only to shed some light on at least one aspect of what it means to be a “team” player.

Jim Thome: On being a professional

We all have heard the expression “he (or she) is an even better person than they are an athlete....”.

Sometimes, it’s an exaggeration.  But in the case of Jim Thome, the long-time major-league baseball player, it may just be accurate.

Thome has been in the game at the major-league level since the early 1990s.  He has played through the infamous steroid era, though he has never been one of those players associated with performance enhancing drugs.  He is a power hitter, but his power by all accounts is "natural".  He was raised, if I’m not mistaken, in a small farming community, and built his strength working at home.

I’ve always heard that Thome is a genuine person.  But an article this week at ESPN.com verified that, beyond his rather significant exploits on the field (he has hit almost 600 home runs, a staggering total) he sets a tremendous example for all of us, including young athletes, because of the way be behaves off the field.

If you have a moment, read the following piece from Buster Olney at http://insider.espn.go.com/mlb/blog?name=olney_buster&id=6846332

It sheds some light on an interesting professional athlete who may be one of the relatively few who truly puts himself in the shoes of others.

Young athletes who aspire to be "pros" but don't really know it it means would do well to emulate Thome.

NFL star James Harrison and a lesson about being a teammate

James Harrison of the National Football League Pittsburgh Steelers is one of the top defensive players in his profession. Though not drafted out of college, he has gone on to a stellar career on one of the league’s top teams.  He is a rugged, talented player.

In a recent interview with Men’s Journal Magazine, Harrison reveals his views on the commissioner of the league, some former players-turned broadcasters and, maybe most importantly, his own teammates.

Now, professional athletes, like the rest of us, have every right to express their opinions on all kinds of subjects. The thing that caught my attention, though, as someone involved in youth sports for many years, were his specific comments about two teammates, running back Rashard Mendenhall and quarterback Ben Roethlisberger. He apparently blamed them in part for the Steelers losing a Super Bowl a few years back.

The Associated Press picked up excerpts from the original story, including the following comments:

Harrison also criticizes other NFL executives, Patriots-turned-commentators Rodney Harrison and Tedy Bruschi (“clowns’’), Houston’s Brian Cushing (“juiced out of his mind’’) - and even teammates Rashard Mendenhall and Ben Roethlisberger for their performances in the Super Bowl loss.

Harrison calls the running back a “fumble machine’’ for his fourth-quarter turnover.

Mendenhall said on Twitter yesterday he didn’t have a problem with what Harrison said “because I know him.’’ But he also included a link to his stats from last season, which show he didn’t have a pattern of fumbling.

Of the quarterback’s two interceptions, Harrison says: “Hey, at least throw a pick on their side of the field instead of asking the D to bail you out again. Or hand the ball off and stop trying to act like Peyton Manning. You ain’t that and you know it, man; you just get paid like he does.’’

Again, everyone is entitled to their views. Star athletes tend to have a broader platform than the rest of us, and some use it well. Others not so well.

I don’t have any noteworthy views on the rest of the article (again, like everyone, athletes can absolutely express their views freely on all kinds of subjects) but when it comes to talking about teammates, when a pro athlete criticizes in the way Harrison evidently did, it is a concern.

In youth sports we try to encourage not only the importance of being part of a team, but what it means to actually be a good teammate. Going after your fellow players in print is not a good thing and sets an unfortunate example.  Too many youngsters (and people in general) are already well prepared to "blame someone else" when their team struggles.

Harrison has quickly apologized for some of his comments, which is good to see. Hopefully his message, if given the chance when speaking with impressionable youngsters, will be that blaming others for defeat is not appropriate. Good teammates simply don’t do that—at any age, at any level of play.