ARE COLLEGE COACHES NO LONGER TRYING TO COMMuNiCATE?

Something weird is going on in youth and amateur sports. I honestly don’t how to say that more bluntly, but my sense –my gut – tells me that youth and amateur sports and what they stand for in this country are beginning to go in a different and unexpected direction.

And that’s disturbing.

Look, we all know that Life is all about change….and as sports parents, part of our job is to teach our kids about change, and how change affects their lives and their sport

I’m not saying change is good or bad….it just is. And we have to make our kids understand the concept of change in sports....if they don’t, well, their athletic career could be a lot shorter than they expected.

But the good news is that – when it comes to kids – they tend to be  more acceptable to change in sports than the sports parents are.

Let me more specific:  There were a couple more incidents from the world of college sports over the last few weeks that caught my eye, and I wanted to share them with you to see if you felt these situations were handled correctly.

And let me just say up front that both of these incidents involved  head college coaches were women – experienced, respected, and successful as coaches at the D-1 level – and yet, as these two stories were reported. I wasn’t sure how to react.

The first article ran a few weeks ago in the Boston area and it focused on the long-time women’s ice hockey coach at Harvard, Katey Stone.

Coach Stone – who I don’t know – has been at Harvard since the mid 1990s, and her list of accomplishments is truly spectacular. Lots of Ivy League championsips, dozens of All-Americans, great student-athletes, and so on.  Her record pretty much speaks for itself.

And yet, this article tended to focus more on the underbelly of her program….how the players felt when they couldn’t communicate with the coaches, or they didn’t feel that some of exercise drills were appropriate, or that it was difficult to get through to see the head coach. As a result a number of top players had quietly quit the team over the years.  There didn’t seem to be any explanation as to why this “tradition” at Harvard hockey continued.

The second article focused on the former women’s head lax coach at Colgate University.

Many of the accussations  that came from the Colgate players were similar to the Harvard program – too demanding in terms of practices and games, the coaches were tough on the kids, this was D-1 hockey with a big emphasis on winning.

Colgate University women’s lacrosse coach Kathy Taylor allegedly ridiculed players over their weight, dismissed their mental health concerns and pushed them to play through injuries that shortened their careers, according to players interviewed in a months-long USA Today Network investigation. These interviews took place over the last several years.

In short, some twenty players have left the Colgate team before graduation since Coach Taylor took over the program four years ago.

Some players say they were pushed out by Taylor, a legendary figure in upstate New York lacrosse circles who became a leading voice for fellow coaches as president of the Intercollegiate Women’s Lacrosse Coaches Association. Others left on their own due to injury or because they didn’t want to play for Taylor. Whatever the reason, a lot of top players at Colgate left.

In other words, in both programs the coaches made it clear that their college team that was devoted to winning . That seemed pretty clear in both articles. And yes, there were college kids who got hurt, or got bored, or who wanted to do something else in college besides play hockey.

That is all true. In college athletes – male and female – lots of top athletes decide for whatever reason -- often decide to walk away. But the real question is why do we still have this communication disconnect at the elite levels of amateur sports. The callers today brought up points that are rarely discussed. Listen here: The Sports Edge with Rick Wolff