A TOUGH WEEK FOR SPORTSMANSHIP

The past couple of weeks we’ve seen an uptick of very disturbing incidents in the world of youth and HS sports, and most of them dealt with a true lack of sportsmanship. I did a round-up of these alarming sports parenting incidents and asked for listeners to chime as to what can be done to prevent these kinds of callous acts from happening in the future.

Specifically, we discussed:

Media reports of a serious HS football hazing incident at Wall HS in NJ. Wall has a long and rich history of being a top football powerhouse, but they were forced to cancel their state championship playoff game due to the hazing issue.

A HS football team in California ran up the score to 106-0 over a hapless opponent. They even went for a two-point conversion when the score was 104-0.

50-60 HS students at an ice hockey game were taped shouting obscenities and profanities at the opposing team’s goalie, who happened to be a girl. No adult or security officer or even coaches or refs tried to stop the verbal onslaught.

Is Odell Beckham’s Dad use of social media to complain about his kid not getting any passes thrown to him going to set a new precedent for sports parents to complain about their kid not getting enough playing time?

Wow – what a week! And the bigger question is…is there an overall lesson to be learned here? Why do these kinds of incidents continue to happen?

Take a few minutes to listen to the podcast here. It’s shocking stuff, all ripped from the headlines.