That’s a pretty strong claim.

So I called up the writer of the article – Jeff Benedict — who’s a good friend and an author of mine – and Jeff came on the radio show this AM to talk about this kid. And sure enough, Jeff verified that all the hype is legit, that there are some pro scouts who even say that Parker is more advanced at this age than James was as a senior in HS.

But beyond the basketball, what’s remarkable about Jabari is that he’s African-American and brought up as a Mormon. That, of course, is extremely rare. His Dad, former NBAer Sonny Parker, married a woman who is of Polynesian descent and who is Mormon. Jabara was raised as in that faith, and is quite dedicated to his beliefs.

In fact, as he turns 19, under Mormon faith, he’s supposed to volunteer to go on a two-year mission. But as Jeff Benedict pointed out, that’s not always necessary, as famed Mormon athletes Steve Young and Danny Ainge didn’t go on missions. Jabari will most likely finish HS next year, play a year of Div I college basketball, and then turn pro. He’ll probably postpone his mission until his active career is done.

But beyond that, this is a young man who is humble, polite, sincere, down-to-earth, and also a very good student. Jabari grew up in a tough part of Chicago, but he’s a living testatment to the time and care that his parents put into his total upbringing. Congratulations to him and his family. I only wish we had more stories like this one from the world of sports parenting.

Each year, I tend to accumulate a number of either just published books or galleys of books that are soon to be published. To that end, over the new few months, I will attempt to review as many of these books that I can, as I know how difficult it is for aspiring authors to get their books any notice from the media.

Let me start with Mark Hyman’s THE MOST EXPENSIVE GAME IN TOWN: The Rising Cost of Youth Sports and the Toll on Today’s Families. Mark is a top-rate investigative journalist, and in recent years, as he’s turned his focus to the world of sports parenting, he does a wonderful job in detailing the patterns of how our society has become so obsessed with their kids in athletics.

I recall first meeting Mark a few years ago when I believe he was working for BusinessWeek, and he had contacted me to interview me about the current issues in sports parenting. In any event, Mark clearly has great passion for this topic, and it shows in his writing.

THE MOST EXPENSIVE GAME IN TOWN is chock full of anecdotes, studies, and research into what has happened in recent years with sports parenting, and it’s clearly worth reading — especially for those parents who are just starting out with their little ones in sports.

However, for those of you who have youngsters already in the sports parenting pipeline,  there really isn’t anything new here that you probably haven’t already encountered. That is, you already know that travel sports are very expensive, that road tournaments can be very pricey, that corporate sponsors of Little League like Kellogg’s on ESPN do it because of the TV ratings involved, not because of altruistic reasons, that expensive private coaching and specialty camps have become the norm, and on and on.

Don’t get me wrong. Mark does an excellent job in providing this kind of overview, and his book presents all the facts.  I only wish that more sports parents took the time to read his book and many of the other similar sports parenting books that try to cover the same points.

The problem is – and this is very vexing for all of us who care about kids who play sports these days - very few sports parents, educators, coaches, or athletic administrators ever seem to dig into these books. The last book that was a true national best-seller about youth sports dates back to Bill Geist’s LITTLE LEAGUE CONFIDENTIAL, and that book first came out in the 1990s.

Bottom line: THE MOST EXPENSIVE GAME IN TOWN is a nicely-written and thoroughly well-researched book that will truly verify your concerns and worries that the cost of sports parenting has skyrocketed out of control.

Fourteen-year-old Keeling Pilaro will play field hockey for Long Island’s Southhampton High School again next season after all.  On Tuesday morning, his continued participation was approved by a close vote of an appeals panel of Section 11, which supervises Suffolk County’s high school sports.  The ultimate issue was whether Title IX would permit him to play on the girls’ field hockey team because his high school does not field a boys’ team in that sport.  “Title IX,” of course, is Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, the landmark congressional statute that prohibits gender discrimination in “any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”

The Pilaro case attracted national, and indeed international, attention as a so-called “reverse discrimination” case, which saw a boy assert rights under a mandate that Congress designed to produce gender equity by overcoming barriers historically imposed against girls and women.  Gender-discrimination challenges by boys and men are actually quite common in American law, but these challenges raise eyebrows, even when (as often happens) the male challenger wins in the Supreme Court or the lower courts. 

In the Pilaro case, plenty of eyebrows were raised among both supporters and opponents of Keeling and his parents.  In Newsday and other interactive newspaper websites, opponents argued, among other things, that (1) the Pilaros should not have hired a lawyer, (2) the Pilaros should not have said that they would challenge an adverse Section 11 ruling in court, and (3) Keeling should choose a “boys’ sport” rather than “girls’ sport.”  According to two of the more than 200 readers who have weighed in on Newsday’s website alone, “It’s pathetic that he is not playing lacrosse instead of field hockey,” and “[H]ere is what it comes down to these days, ‘if my kid doesn’t get his way, we’ll just sue sue sue.’”   

Vindicating Civil Rights

Each of these three arguments misses the point. Title IX is a civil rights statute, enacted by Congress to eradicate gender discrimination in elementary, secondary and higher education.  Indeed, Congress expressly patterned Title IX after Title IV of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination for race, color, or national origin in “any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” 

The United States was built on challenges asserted by persons who believed that official action violated civil rights granted to them by statute or the Constitution.  And yes, lawyers typically represent these challengers as they seek vindication before administrative agencies and courts.  Sometimes challengers win and sometimes they lose, but seeking to vindicate one’s civil rights under law is as American as apple pie. 

Field hockey is only a game, of course, and one youngster’s participation or non-participation at one Long Island high school may seem like no big deal in the grand scheme of things.  Surely the Pilaro case did not concern world peace, nuclear disarmament, or any of the other momentous public issues that concern us these days.  But to a 13-year-old, playing a chosen sport is a big deal.  The Pilaro case’s outcome was a big deal because Congress and the U.S. Department of Education have rightfully made civil rights challenges under Title IX — by individual women and men alike — a big deal for the past four decades.

One person’s solitary effort to secure a civil rights law’s protection may seem like small potatoes, but potatoes tend to appear larger when they are your potatoes.  I recall Wisconsin v. Yoder, a 1972 case brought by a group of Amish parents who believed that application of the state’s compulsory education act to their older teens violated their First Amendment rights to free exercise of their religion.  The state act required parents to send their children to public school until the age of 16 (unless they attended private school or were home schooled), but the Amish parents asserted that their religious beliefs compelled an end to formal schooling at 14.  The parents took the case all the way to the Supreme Court – and they won.  

What was at stake in the Yoder case?  The Supreme Court victory overturned the fine that state authorities had imposed on each parent for violating the compulsory education act.  The fines amounted to five dollars each.

Choose Another Sport?

It is no answer to say that Keeling Pilaro could choose another sport.  Of course he could, but imposing that choice does not answer the question whether Title IX’s civil rights mandate entitles him to play field hockey.  A person denied civil rights can usually find a less palatable alternative, but resolution of civil rights guarantees must come first.

When Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of the bus in Montgomery, Alabama on December 1, 1955, for example, she had alternatives.  She could have walked to work, driven to work, asked a friend to drive her, or taken a taxi.  Or she could have stayed home altogether.  But with the help of lawyers, she challenged discrimination and asserted her civil rights as she saw them.  We know the rest of the story as the Civil Rights Movement moved into high gear.

Nor is it an answer to dismiss field hockey a “girls sport.”  In most of the rest of the world (including Ireland, where Keeling spent his early years and learned to play), field hockey is a sport for males and females alike in local, regional and high level national competition.  Indeed, men’s field hockey worldwide is considerably older than women’s field hockey.  

Field hockey evolved as a female sport in the United States partly because of the sort of gender discrimination that Title IX seeks to combat.  When I was in high school in the late 1960s, field hockey was one of the few socially acceptable sports for the relatively few girls who chose to play interscholastic sports at all.  Without artificial turf that came only later, field hockey was a rather slow game, played on grass that was often too long and usually had the rough surfaces that characterize natural lawns.  Players did not get too dirty, and the players typically wore skirts that made them look like — well — girls.

Conclusion

In fact, girls in the United States often participate on boys athletic teams and (less frequently) boys participate on girls teams in sports not classified as contact or collision sports.  I found the Readers’ Comments to Newsday’s coverage of the Pilaro case to be tough reading because many missed points such as this, but also because so many comments descended into the snide innuendo that passes for public discussion whenever a newspaper covers a controversial matter these days and invites readers’ responses from the anonymity of the keyboard.  I can only imagine the content of the comments that did not pass Newsday.com’s Terms of Service.

As I wrote in last week’s column , Title IX has changed America for the better by helping to bring girls and women closer to the mainstream of our national life.  I am glad that the Pilaros stood up for their son in this case, however, and equally glad that they won before the Section 11 appeals panel.  I felt that fairness was on the Pilaros’ side, and that they stood an excellent chance on court review of an adverse decision.  As I said last week, Keeling “plays clean; fits in well with his coaches and teammates; holds the support of his school’s administration; and poses no safety risk to girls because, at 4’8” and 86 pounds, he is smaller than many of them.” 

Unless the safety factor changes in future years, Keeling Pilaro now gets to play his sport as girls strive to develop their own skills to meet the competition. This equation is why the United States has civil rights laws, and why — win or lose — these laws deserve robust enforcement.

Curiously, the phone lines were slow to light up. But after a few minutes, the calls came pouring in. Opinions, not surprisingly, ranged from “You can’t lead your life being nervous and worried about what might happen” to “I got hit over the head by an opponent with a hockey stick, and I was in a coma for two days and I still have lingering issues.”

In truth, I just don’t know what parents can say, or should say, these days. A generation ago, Moms and Dads were worried about young HS football players having serious knee injuries and many subtly pushed their boys to play a “safer” sport like soccer. Now, of course, anyone who has seen a HS soccer game knows how dangerous that sport can be, including knee injuries and concussions from headers.

The real problem, of course, is that no one knows how to prevent concussions. With football, there’s a new helmet called the Xenith which supposedly cuts down on concussions much more effectively the traditional Riddell model. But the NFL has a long-term contract with Riddell, which they aren’t eager to break. Meanwhile, according to media reports, more than 100 current NFLer’s now wear the Xenith. If I had a son playing football, I sure would check out the Xenith model.

And of course, more and more states are mandating that HS athletes undergo an imPact neurological test for all kids. That’s a good idea, but again, this kind of test doesn’t really prevent any concussions.

So what to do? I just don’t know. The best approach — at least for now — is to warn your child if their head gets banged in a a game or practice to tell the coach and to come out of the game immediately. That not be what kids (or coaches) want to hear, but as an adult and caring parent, it’s the right thing to do.

Rick Wolff and I had another stimulating conversation on “The Sports Edge” last Sunday morning, this time about Title IX’s dramatic effect on the lives of boys and girls in sports.  Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972, of course, is the landmark congressional legislation that prohibits gender discrimination in “any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”  The prohibition reaches public school districts and the governing bodies that administer interscholastic sports.

The impetus for Sunday morning’s Title IX conversation concerned a tentative decision to deny ninth-grader Keeling Pilaro’s request to continue playing on the girls’ field hockey team at Southampton High School, which does not field a boys’ field hockey team.  By all media accounts, the 13-year-old Keeling plays clean; fits in well with his coaches and teammates; holds the support of his school’s administration; and poses no safety risk to girls because, at 4’8” and 86 pounds, he is smaller than many or most of them.  According to Section 11 (which supervises Suffolk County’s high school sports), Keeling may not play next season because he has become too talented in the two years that he has already played on the high school team with the Section’s permission, and without incident.

“Not a Denials Committee”

The Suffolk County Title IX dispute reminds me of a story that makes the rounds here at the University of Missouri Law School.  A few years ago, one of my colleagues took a special approach to his role as chair of the Admissions Committee, the four-member faculty group that determines which applicants are admitted and which ones are denied.  Like other law schools of our caliber, we have a selective admissions process, with less than half the applicants gaining admission.  Denials remain unpleasant because they affect people’s lives, but denials are inevitable in any academic admissions process.  In close cases, however, my faculty colleague always gave the applicant the benefit of the doubt because, he said, “We are the Admissions Committee, not the Denials Committee.”

School administrators and league officials should take a similar approach when they affect the lives of children in sports.  These authorities should consider themselves sports providers, not sports deniers.  

With the demise of choose-up sandlot-style play in the past generation or so, boys and girls today usually face the prospect of either playing adult-organized sports or playing no sports at all.  It is no answer to say that a player like Keeling Pilaro can simply try to “find another sport.”  Participation in youth sports is meant to be fun and fulfilling, an avocation and not a vocation.  The real question is whether the player gets to compete in the sport that engages his or her passions, and not whether the player might search for some other sport.  

Title IX helped remake America for the better, but adults administering high school sports should not exclude a student from participation except for solid reasons, when no alternative appears.  Reasons for exclusion may exist, for example, when a team’s roster cannot accommodate all players who try out, when a player lacks the requisite skills, or when a player poses a chronic discipline problem.  Under Title IX and the federal Constitution’s equal-protection law, however, talent and hard work should tip the scales in favor of a boy who plays by the rules and raises no plausible claim of physical danger to girls, but who has no other high school opportunity to pursue his game. 

[I had planned to continue last week’s column with “The Power of Thank-You -- Part II” this week, but I think that the field hockey case calls for timely discussion.  Unless something else develops, I will present “Part II” next week.]

But that being said, every so often a quirky situation develops and it leaves everybody scratching their head. Here’s the latest controversy involving Title IX:

An 8th grade boy named Keeling Pilaro who grew up in Ireland is challenging a New York State HS athletic board which says, in effect, that he can no longer play on the Southampton HS field hockey team because he made the All-Conference team last fall.

A few facts you should know. In most countries around the world, field hockey – which is traditionally a girls’ sports in the US – is played by boys and men. Pilaro grew up playing field hockey in Ireland, and when he moved to the US, he discovered that the only way to keep playing his sport is by being on the HS girls’ team.

Under Title IX, if there is no comparable sport (e.g girls’ basketball =  boys’ basketball), then the boy has a right to play on the girls’ team, if he can make the team.

Pilaro stands all of 4’8″ tall and weighs about 100 pounds. He is not a physical threat to the girls. By all accounts he’s a talented and clean player.

Last fall Pilaro was one of the league’s top scorers, and was named to the All-Conference team.

Section XI – the ruling body for Long Island – has ruled that Pilaro was such a good player that he can no longer play for Southampton HS.

Law professor Doug Abrams came on my radio show this past weekend to go over all the angles on this case, and I think it’s fair to say that he concluded that if Section XI continues to hold that Pilaro can not play, then Pilaro would have a pretty good case for discrimination.

There are all sorts of inequities here in a sitaution which, ironically, is supposed to be about equality. For example, in Massachusetts, boys are routinely allowed to play field hockey on girls’ team under the protection of Title IX and have done for years. And there are plenty of cases where girls have played on boys’ teams (such as wrestling, football, ice hockey, and so on).

So why is Section XI picking on this kid? And what kind of rationale is being used when you rule that a kid who has worked hard at his sport has now become disqualified because he’s become too good?

I’m sure there are lots of legal explanations here, but from my perspective, this just doesn’t make any sense.

When I was president of a youth hockey program a few years ago, a coach told me over the summer that he would not return for the upcoming season.  “I had trouble with the parents last year,” he explained, “and I they didn’t appreciate what I tried to do.  I don’t want to go through that again, and neither does my family.”

Parents frequently exasperate youth league and high school coaches these days, but this particular coach’s explanation surprised me because I knew that he was popular among nearly all of his team’s families.  The parents told me so throughout the season.  The problem was that most of the parents did not tell him.  A simple handshake and thank-you during or after the season would have given credit where credit was due, but the supportive parents instead let themselves become a “silent majority.”

At the hockey program’s early-autumn registration shortly afterwards, I asked a few of the coach’s admirers why they had not thanked or complimented him face-to-face.  Our program’s parents were good people, but some needed gentle reminders about how to express their gratitude to coaches, teachers and other adults who play a tangential, yet positive role in their children’s upbringing.

The four answers I received most often from this coach’s admirers demonstrate why grateful parents – the majority, for most thoughtful youth league and high school coaches – need to express their gratitude directly to the coach:

1)         “I never thought about saying thank you” (or “I didn’t think it was important”).  Parents lead busy lives and have many things on their minds, but no thoughtful parent would accept these answers from their own children when Uncle Joe or Aunt Susie sends them a birthday gift.  Whether the coach receives a stipend or serves as a volunteer, taking kindness and generosity for granted sends the wrong message at any age.  Shaking hands and saying thank you takes very little effort, but recognizes a job well done.   

 2)        “I assumed that if I said nothing, the coach would sense my appreciation because I did not complain.”  It seems a shame that some youth sports programs suffer from so much parental discontent these days that perfectly reasonable parents can sometimes mistake their silence for tacit approval.  In youth leagues and high schools alike, coaches are not mind readers.  A parent’s silence says nothing and can lead coaches to draw their own conclusions, however inaccurate the conclusions might be.  Veteran coaches understand non-verbal communication, so they might be able to draw positive impressions from a parent’s occasional nod or smile.  But coaching can also be a lonely enterprise because the coach must promote the welfare of all the players, while each parent rightfully pays special attention to his or her own child.  There is no substitute for praise, particularly when the isolated detractors do not mince their words.  If a parent means to thank the coach, the parent needs to thank the coach.

3)         “I assumed that my son’s (or daughter’s) thank-you was enough, and I didn’t want to get involved.”  Coaches are fond of saying that they coach the players and not the parents, but talented coaches also seek to please mothers and fathers. Thoughtful parents should know that, and most probably do.  Even when players reach their teen years and can talk more directly with the coach, the player’s important expression of appreciation provides no substitute for the parents’ own expression because the coach serves both player and parent, sometimes in the same way and sometimes in different ways.

4)         “I did not want to seem like a ‘brown noser’ who was seeking special treatment.”   Parents sell the coach short when they confuse a simple handshake and thank-you with an effort to get on the coach’s good side.  Handshakes and thank-you’s suggest nothing about special treatment, but much about common gratitude.  Day in and day out, parents and children thank friends, acquaintances and even strangers for their courtesies.  Youth sports does not suspend everyday rules of common courtesy.

Intangible Gifts

After coaching youth hockey for more than 40 years, I have plenty of plaques and memory books from our teams.  Each gift holds special meaning because each team was special, but no gift means more than a simple, sincere handshake or a thank- you.  Intangible gifts mean as much as tangible ones.

As the youth hockey program’s president a few years ago, I always tried to relay to coaches the praise I received about them, and I always urged parents to deliver their praise directly to the coach.  For the players’ sake, the program needed to do everything we could to retain good coaches.  Adults with the time, talents and temperament to reach young athletes are hard to come by.  

When a youth league or high school coach attracts little but articulated criticism and unarticulated praise, the criticism sounds even louder and the coach can easily get the wrong idea.  By the end of preseason registration, the parents did belatedly thank the coach whose story began this column, and he returned for a few more years until he moved on to other things.  A few dozen more players were the winners because they got the chance to play for him.

Forgive me – and perhaps it’s been too many years since I forked out all sorts of cash for my kids to play youth sports — but I think it’s safe to say that any parent who has a child playing any kind of organized sport knows that there’s going to be a steep financial price to be paid. 

It starts with registering your kid to play, then money for the team uniform, then for your child’s equipment, and then, if it’s a travel team, you have to shell out cash for motels, gas, food, etc. The costs can easily run into the thousands of dollars for each season.

As such, I thought it was odd that the Times was pointing out that baseball bats cost hundreds of dollars, that private coaches are expensive, and so on. Again, maybe it’s just me, but one of the ironies I’ve always found about youth sports is that parents gladly spend thousands of dollars in the hope that their kid will somehow qualify for a small partial athletic scholarship in college (remember, with the exception of football, basketball, and maybe ice hockey, very few colleges ever offer full rides for a sport).

Bottom line? I just found it humorous that the NY Times thought it was big news that youth sports were expensive. It must have been a slow news day.

After graduating, he spent a number of years in the family business. But then, a few years ago, he had a revelation that he wanted to get involved in sports again, and also, give back to sports in some way. He did just that by creating a company called Backyard Sports, (www.byardsports.com) which allows kids to enjoy playing sports while eliminating the outside pressures of parents, coaches, travel teams, and so on.

The result is a unique program where youngsters “mix and match” in something akin to the old standard of pick-up games, where you find yourself playing with kids from all over. The idea, of course, is for the youngsters to make new friendships, learn how to become a leader, and most importantly, to enjoy playing sports without feeling that it’s all about winning all the time.

Kids find this approach refreshing and liberating. So do their parents. Each session starts with one of the “teaching coaches” at Backyard spending a little time instructing the kids on a particular skill or drill. From there, teams are selected, and play begins. Like when we were kids, these youngsters pretty much regulate themselves — there’s no need for refs or umps, and of course, there are no league standings or playoffs. It’s all about enjoying the game today…the other stuff is more for the parents anyway.

We had a number of calls on the show this AM all praising what Danny has put together. Maybe, just maybe, parents are beginning to wake up to the reality that kids really need to first develop a passion for their sport before we can expect them to spend 10,000 hours trying to become a pro at it. And that passion is ignited by kids having fun…the kid of fun that Danny Bernstein is advocating. In short, it would seem we’re looking ahead to the future by going back to the old standards of fun from the past.

The past few weeks have not been kind to Annette McCullough and Austin O’Such.  Both players competed in games that otherwise would have attracted little attention locally, and no attention elsewhere.  But both players committed flagrant fouls that went viral when films were posted on YouTube.  Thanks to the national – and indeed, international – notoriety that has dogged the two, their sports careers will never be the same.  The permanent damage holds important lessons for parents, coaches, and players in the age of the Internet and social media.

Momentary Lapses of Teenage Judgment

In a March 26 girls’ soccer game in South Carolina, Lewisville High School’s Annette McCullough was chasing the ball with a Chester High School opponent.  After routine contact, the two went down.  The 18-year-old senior McCullough arose, grabbed the opponent’s hair, and began punching her in the face and head nearly a dozen times.  The opponent, still on the ground, covered herself to fend off the blows until a woman separated the two.  An official showed McCullough a red card and escorted her from the field.  “Some incidental contact ended in one girl going down and [McCullough] just got up and started pummeling,” the referee said after the game.  “Contact is a part of soccer, but when you retaliate like that, . . . there is no place in the game for that.”

In Arizona three days later, a dispute broke out after a Scottsdale Community College batter laid down a bunt near the first base line in the top of the ninth inning of a close game against Yavapai Community College.  Players from both teams gathered and began exchanging words on the right side of the infield, but with little or no pushing or shoving.  A Scottsdale runner, with his back to the outfield, stood alone on second base watching and waiting for play to resume.  Within a few seconds, Yavapai’s 18-year-old freshman left fielder Austin O’Such left his position to race toward the commotion.  On the way, O’Such charged full speed at the unsuspecting base runner, blindsided him, and sent him sprawling into the basepath as his helmet flew off.  After a few moments, Scottsdale’s trainer helped the base runner to his feet.

A local television station caught the soccer assault on film, and a spectator filmed the blind-siding on second base.  As of April 18, the McCullough soccer film appears on at least 31 YouTube sites, which have received a total of more than 300,000 views.  The O’Such baseball film has received more than three million views on a YouTube site entitled “The Worst Cheap Shot Ever in Baseball.”  (This column’s readers can view the soccer film (2:16 in length) at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HI9zOkM5vjA, and the baseball film (1:32 in length) at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UywRu8QPXA ).

Both players quickly forfeited their personal privacy as bloggers responded with nasty, and sometimes vulgar, commentary directed at them by name.  Newspaper stories from as far away as Britain and Australia also reported the incidents and named names.

The Worldwide Aftermath

Cheap shots have surely marked local sports for decades.  Charges and counter-charges might simmer for a while, but memories and bad feelings would soon fade for lack of permanent evidence as players and families moved on with their private lives.  Annette McCullough and Austin O’Such were not so fortunate. 

McCullough was charged with third-degree assault and battery by prosecutors who undoubtedly felt local pressure to respond swiftly to an attack that a worldwide audience of thousands saw on film.    

O’Such apologized and the college suspended him for the rest of the season, but someone anonymously posted his personal information online.  He and his parents began receiving death threats by email, texts and phone messages from all over the country.  Threats also came to Yavapai’s coach from people who charged that his team had planned the blindsiding.  Yavapai’s athletic director told the New York Daily News that “People were saying, ‘We’re going to come out and get you, we’re going to take care of this.’  Kinda crazy talk.  But in this day and age, you don’t know who’s serious and who’s just talking.”

O’Such heeded advice from campus police and his athletic director to leave school for his own safety. The left fielder returned home to his family in California, reportedly began taking online courses, and says that he is unlikely to return to college to play baseball again.  According to the Arizona Republic, “O’Such ran over [the runner] and then social media ran over O’Such.” 

An Ounce of Prevention

What lessons do the unhappy McCullough and O’Such episodes hold for parents, coaches and players in youth leagues and the high schools?  On “The Sports Edge,” Rick Wolff and I have urged parents and coaches to provide their players advance instruction about the Internet’s dangers, and not to avoid the dialog until after something bad happens.  The Internet and the social media are facts of life today, and adults ignore their potency at their children’s peril.  

Proactive, open communication is key.  Parents at home need to talk with their players about self-discipline on the field in the Internet age; coaches must discuss cyber realities during preseason meetings with players and parents alike, and then must reinforce warnings periodically throughout the season, when teenage temptations to exercise bad judgment may grow stronger as pressures build.  Benjamin Franklin was right that “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” but he wrote before the Internet.  The McCullough and O’Such stories demonstrate that youthful lapses in judgment sometimes have no cure at all.  Once an incident goes viral, the electronic media is unforgiving and the incident remains in the public domain.

How can youth coaches warn their players and parents about the electronic media most effectively?  Each coaching staff is the best judge of its own team’s circumstances and the sensibilities of its families, but the adage that a “picture is worth a thousand words” provides a good start.  

I would urge coaches to show the brief McCullough and O’Such videos to the players and parents at upcoming meetings in the next few weeks or months.  Indeed, the coach should repeat the videos two or three times in succession if they initially astound viewers.  Then the coach can reinforce the lesson by distributing one or more news stories about the lasting fallout from each filmed incident.  Stories, including ones cited below, can be retrieved from Google.

In grade school, “Show and Tell” taught us that people respond best to instruction that they both see and hear.  By presenting both film clips and news stories, coaches encourage parents and players to grasp the ultimate lesson – that a teenager’s momentary on-the-field impulsiveness can wreak serious, often permanent damage because barely noticeable surveillance devices in public places dominate our public lives nowadays.  If an incident from an otherwise nondescript South Carolina high school soccer game or Arizona community college baseball game can go viral within minutes or hours, an incident from any game can go viral. 

An old saying reminds us that “Integrity is what you do when you don’t think anyone is watching.”  Playing sports the right way has always demanded integrity, but the demand is even greater today because someone may very well be watching – with a camera. 

[Sources: Scott Bordow, Game Between Yavapai College, Scottsdale Community College Hits 1 Million Views Online, Arizona Republic, Apr. 9, 2012; Rheanna Murray, Baseball Player Leaves College After Video of Him Pummeling Opposing Athlete Goes Viral on YouTube, Prompts Threats, N.Y. Daily News, Apr. 10, 2012; Thomas Durante, Hardly a Fair Fight: Shocking Video of College Baseball Player Plowing Over Oblivious Rival During Game, Daily Mail (Britain), Apr. 8, 2012; Louise Boyle, Red Card! Female Soccer Player, 18, Drags Rival By Hair and Punches Her 11 Times After Being Tripped During Match, Daily Mail (Britain), Mar. 29, 2012; South Carolina Girl Charged With Assault Following High School Soccer Brawl, http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/south-carolina-girl-charged-with-assault-following-high-school-soccer-brawl/story-e6frfku0-1226313348498;

Cameron Smith, South Carolina Teen’s Brutal Soccer Attack Earns Assault Charge, Yahoo! Sports, Mar. 29, 2012]