League of Fans Says All Tyrannical Coaches Should Receive the Same Treatment as Mike Rice
Sports Reform Organization Calls for More Coaching Education Programs That Promote Humanistic Coaching Styles
In the wake of the firing this week of Rutgers’ men’s basketball coach Mike Rice for abusing his players, League of Fans announced today that it is calling for more coaching education programs that promote humanistic coaching styles as an antidote to today’s autocratic coaching norm — which continues to predominate at all levels of sports.
“Unfortunately, there are other coaches out there using coaching methods similar to what Rice employed — even at the youth level,” said Ken Reed, sports policy director for League of Fans. “We tolerate behavior from our sports coaches that we’d never tolerate from high school classroom teachers or college professors. Why?
“The coach has a tremendous influence on an athlete’s sports experience – at any level. The leadership style a coach chooses to employ is a major factor in whether that experience will be positive or negative, satisfying or frustrating, fulfilling or miserable. Sports at the youth, high school and college levels are supposed to be part of the educational process for young people.”
Coaches need to differentiate between striving to win and attempting to win at all costs (WAAC). A WAAC mentality places values like fairness, justice and ethical behavior –in essence, sportsmanship — in a secondary role. The WAAC approach is to control and use individual athletes as a means toward winning ball games – the psycho-social ramifications for the athletes as human beings is but a secondary consideration.
According to League of Fans, the commonly held belief that coaches need to be the stereotypical no-nonsense, kick ‘em in the butt, drill sergeant type of coach to be successful is a myth.
“The research shows that if you find a task fun you’ll perform better,” says Reed. “Studies link happiness and satisfaction with higher performance. The belief that coaches need to scream at players and treat them in a degrading way to win is not true. Sadly, it’s an ingrained part of our sports culture. If coaches in this country took more of a democratic and humanistic approach to coaching we would have fewer athletes dropping out of sports in their teens and happier, more satisfied – and more successful –athletes at all levels.”
Reed said the problem of overbearing, sometimes tyrannical, authoritarian coaches is especially troublesome at the youth sports level where a WAAC mentality hinders the development of the whole child.
“Research has shown that a mastery approach to coaching gets the best out of athletes,” said Jim Thompson, executive director of Positive Coaching Alliance and author of the book, The Power of Double-Goal Coaching: Developing Winners in Sports and Life. “I am very supportive of League of Fans’ effort to eradicate win-at-all-cost coaching, especially for high school and youth athletes.”
As disgusting as the Mike Rice situation is, it can be used as a catalyst for change.
“Sports society has been conditioned in this country that coaches – from the pros down to our youth leagues — have to adopt a Vince Lombardi, or worse, type of coaching style by treating their athletes inhumanely and motivating them by force and fear,” said Ralph Nader, League of Fans founder. “That notion is archaic and inaccurate. Our sports culture needs to evolve from the dark ages and transition to more meaningful humanistic coaching styles that enhance the overall experience for athletes while still striving to win games. Legendary coaches such as John Wooden of UCLA, John Gagliardi of Saint John’s College, and Tara VanDerveer of Stanford proved for decades that winning teams and humane, wise coaches can go together.”
Sports Forum Podcast
Episode #28 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: A Chat With Mano Watsa, a Leading Basketball and Life Educator – Watsa is President of PGC Basketball, the largest education basketball camp in the world, with over 150 camps in 30+ U.S. states and Canada. We discuss problems in youth sports today, including single sport specialization, the growing gap between the “haves” and “have-nots,” the high drop-out rate in competitive sports, and the growing mental health challenges young athletes are dealing with today.
Listen on Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Anchor and others.
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More Episodes on Apple Podcasts; Spotify; Google Podcasts; PocketCasts; & Anchor
Episode #27 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: Kids’ Sports: How We Can Take Back the Game and Restore Quality Family Time In the Process – Linda Flanagan is author of “Take Back the Game: How Money and Mania Are Ruining Kids’ Sports and Why It Matters.” We discuss how commercialized and professionalized youth sports are hurting kids and their families.
Episode #26 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: How Can We Fix Youth Sports? – John O’Sullivan is Founder and CEO of Changing the Game Project and author of “Changing the Game: The Parents Guide to Raising Happy, High Performing Athletes and Giving Youth Sports Back to Our Kids.”
Episode #25 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: Physical Education Should Be a Critical Component of K-12 School Design – Michael Horn is co-founder of the Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation.
Episode #24 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: Mental Health and Athletes: Ending the Stigma – Nathan Braaten and Taylor Ricci are the founders of Dam Worth It, a non-profit created to end the stigma around mental health at colleges and universities through sport, storytelling, and community creation.
Episode #23 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: Olympian Benita Fitzgerald Mosley Talks Title IX, Youth Sports and the Olympics.
Media
"How We Can Save Sports" author Ken Reed appears on Fox & Friends to explain how there's "too much adult in youth sports."
Ken Reed appears on Mornings with Gail from KFKA Radio in Colorado to discuss bad parenting in youth athletics.
“Should College Athletes Be Paid?” Ken Reed on The Morning Show from Wisconsin Public Radio
Ken Reed appears on KGNU Community Radio in Colorado (at 02:30) to discuss equality in sports and Title IX.
Ken Reed appears on the Ralph Nader Radio Hour (at 38:35) to discuss his book The Sports Reformers: Working to Make the World of Sports a Better Place, and to talk about some current sports issues.
- League of Fans Sports Policy Director Ken Reed quoted in Washington Post column titled "What happened to P.E.? It’s losing ground in our push for academic improvement," by Jay Mathews
League of Fans is a sports reform project founded by Ralph Nader to fight for the higher principles of justice, fair play, equal opportunity and civil rights in sports; and to encourage safety and civic responsibility in sports industry and culture.
Vanderbilt Sport & Society - On The Ball with Andrew Maraniss with guest Ken Reed, Sports Policy Director for League of Fans and author of How We Can Save Sports: A Game Plan
Sports & Torts – Ken Reed, Sports Policy Director, League of Fans – at the American Museum of Tort Law
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