A question of propriety? Should HS coaches be allowed to run travel programs for their players?
Rarely has a topic generated more comments on my show than this one – and understandably so. In short, as travel teams inexorably begin to dominate the HS landscape, more and more HS varsity coaches are beginning to see a potential payday by running their own travel programs for their players in the off-season. The … Read more
Forcing HS athletes to choose between travel teams and varsity teams….why?
So, you’re a talented HS soccer player – so good, in fact, that you’ve been playing for the elite US Soccer Academy Development team in your region. It’s a premier team that allows a soccer player to compete against other elite players, all of whom are in the hunt for a college scholarship, or even … Read more
Who Owns Youth Sports? (Part III) What Two Innovators Can Teach Parents and Coaches
By Doug Abrams Last week’s column urged adults in conventional youth-sports associations to combine the best of pre-1970s sandlot play with the best of today’s organized play. The focus was on individual coaches. “In today’s organized programs,” I wrote, “thoughtful youth-league coaches can combine the fun, spontaneity and individual autonomy of sandlot play with the … Read more
Who Owns Youth Sports? (Part II)
By Doug Abrams Last week’s column discussed the sandlot play that thrived in the United States until the late 1960s, and contrasted it with the adult-organized youth leagues that dominate today. I concluded that because children used to play sports without adult involvement most of the time, today’s children “do not need the adults to … Read more
2011 LITTLE LEAGUE UPDATE: PITCH COUNTS, CURVEBALLS AND ALUMINUM BATS – WHERE DO WE STAND?
By Steve Kallas Back in August of 2007, Rick Wolff and I wrote an article entitled “Little League – Is Winning More Important Than Safety?” (see Kallas Remarks, 8/30/07). In that article, we discussed the Little League approach to pitch counts, curveballs and aluminum bats. Here, a comparison of Little League’s 2007 rules and its … Read more
The Dilemma of Coaching One’s Own Kid
Annette Reiter was a top-flight HS and college basketball player, and after graduating from school, she maintained her passion for the game by coaching HS and AAU girls’ teams. She’s now an assistant coach at Rowan University. But like many coaches, she grappled with the dilemma of whether she should coach her own daughters in … Read more
The Lingering Worries about Entitlement in Youth Sports
A caller this AM on my WFAN radio show said that, as far as he’s concerned, the parents who go through all the effort of setting up a travel team SHOULD be allowed a certain amount of entitlement when it comes to deciding who makes the team, who is named an All-Star, and so on. … Read more
When Sports Parents Cross the Line: Writing Threatening Letters to Coaches
The recent incident involving a sports parenting mom, Janet Chiauzzi of East Meadow, NY, goes a little deeper than just her bizarre reaction to her 10-year-0ld son not making the local LL travel team. According to police and media reports, Ms. Chiauzzi was so dismayed by her son being cut that she sat down and wrote a … Read more
Respect in Sports: What High School Coaches Should Say at Their Retirement Dinner
By Doug Abrams Thank you everyone. This is my last opportunity to talk with you as Coach, a title I have cherished ever since I first put the whistle around my neck years ago. A few core principles have guided my coaching career, and I hope that they will also guide your athletic pursuits, now … Read more
NJ Governor Chris Christie: Did He Go Too Far as a Sports Parent?
On one hand, you can make a case that Gov. Chris Christie was just doing what he could to help balance his priorities as a dad along with the demands of his government job. After all, what sports parent hasn’t felt the anxious crunch of time constraints of one’s job when one’s kid is playing in … Read more
"The Sports Edge"
Rick Wolff
Steve Kallas
Doug Abrams
