What did you say, coach?

SORRY COACH, NO CUSSING TODAY.


Some may feel like this is going a tad too far but...

Under the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) rules, which govern athletic contests nationally, coaches agree to abide by a Coaches Code of Ethics which includes the following:

- Each student should be treated with the utmost respect and his/her welfare should be considered in decisions by the coach at all times.

- The coach shall uphold uphold the honor and dignity of the profession.

- In all personal contact with students, officials.....the coach shall strive to set an example of the highest ethical and moral conduct.

...so I'm not sure how ANY coach can justify the use of profanities or vulgar language in the conduct of his duties representing himself, the school, the city or town the school represents and himself.

Now, having said that, I don't necessarily want the tape of some of my demonstrations as a coach rolled before my eyes again. But those were hopefully filed under the category of youthful indiscretions that I've learned from.

That is the main reason why I don't believe in a ZERO TOLERANCE POLICY in this regard. When I referee or umpire if a player utters a profanity under his breath-- with no other overt demonstration--I just caution them to keep it down and try to control themselves a bit better. If it continues, then we may have a problem.

And there are certain words that will get you closer to trouble than others. The F-word and the G-D combination come to mind. But a zero tolerance policy doesn't allow for a teaching moment or a chance for the player or coach to gather themselves and make the correction. I don't go along with that. Because most do make the adjustment and there is no further issue.

I'm glad to see that it is being taken more seriously and emphasized to the coaches, players and officials. Like the games themselves, you can take it too seriously and create more problems than you solve.


From Tbo.com: Cursing Coaches get the message
http://www2.tbo.com/content/2009/oct/04/na-cursing-coaches-get-the-message/sports-prepsports/

Published: October 4, 2009

TAMPA - Mike DePue has spent nearly three decades as a football coach at Robinson High School. He has built a reputation for being among the more volatile coaches in the county, he says.

"I wear my passion on my shoulder," said DePue, now in his seventh season as the Knights' head coach.

Occasionally, like a lot of coaches, that passion has led to profanity.

"This is an emotional, violent game," DePue said. "Does it (profanity) happen? Absolutely. Has it happened in the past? Of course it has."

Two Hillsborough County volunteer assistant football coaches are no longer coaching after recent incidents of cursing on the sidelines during games. Now DePue - and every coach who has the occasional slip of the tongue - will be much more cautious.

"If you aren't cognizant and aware of what's going on, you're a fool," DePue said, "because the hammer is coming down."

Nevertheless, the dismissals have caught the attention of football coaches, including those at private schools.

"Are we perfect? No, we're absolutely not perfect," Jesuit football coach Joe Ross said. "But based on what's been going on around here lately, we certainly will try to be."

Zero tolerance

Lanness Robinson, Hillsborough schools' director of athletics, insists the district isn't cracking down on cursing coaches any more than usual. Robinson said coaches in all sports, paid and volunteer, are required to sign a form outlining the school district's conduct expectations. He said upholding those expectations always has been a priority, and the district's zero-tolerance policy regarding profanity always has been enforced.

"We don't allow our coaches to curse," Robinson said. "Period."

Profanity is prohibited by the state's athletic governing body, the Florida High School Athletic Association. The FHSAA handbook calls profanity unsporting conduct. The association's spokeswoman, Cristina Alvarez, said unsporting conduct can lead to fines, suspensions or both. The punishment depends on the severity of the incident.

Cursing 'commonplace'

No coach interviewed for this story condoned the use of profanity. Nearly all, however, admitted to their language fallibility.

"It's sad to say for the most part, but certain words in this day and age are commonplace," Riverview football coach Bruce Gifford said. "It's the everyday language now."

Most coaches said they see a difference in letting a profane word or two slip during a pregame speech to fire up a team and berating a player with a profanity-laced tirade. But the school district wants the athletic environment to be an extension of the classroom, said Alonso athletic director Kent Glover, and that means coaches must adhere to those standards.

Wharton football coach David Mitchell said coaches shouldn't rely on profanity to get their message across. They are supposed to be shaping the lives of the student-athletes.

Profanity is "going to happen. That's just the nature of the game. But you have to have control over it," Strawberry Crest football coach Todd Donohoe said. "You've got coaches that are slinging that (language) left and right, and they aren't the role models for what we want these kids to turn in to.

"I've been around long enough to know how difficult it is, believe me. But you've got to be able to look in a mirror and ask yourself, 'Is that the direction I want to lead my team?'"

One of the (many) qualities I admired in Tony Dungy as a coach was that he did not allow himself to slip into the mire of the culture and he asked his NFL teams to follow suit. It is a credit to the respect he had from his players that from all reports, they did not curse on the field while Dungy was the coach.

I know a couple of years back the NCAA promised a crackdown on coaches (basketball I believe) and their use of profanity. I am sure it applied to other sports as well.

From The Indianapolis Star and the Charlotte Observer:

The Star reports that college referees this year “will be cleaning up bad language” from college basketball coaches. Apparently this means that coaches will be given a technical foul whenever a dirty word is heard, without warning.

The CHARLOTTE OBSERVER adds-on about the move, reporting that some coaches are concerned the NCAA “will award postseason officiating opportunities based on how those rules are applied.”

FOLLOW UP: A COACH'S WORST NIGHTMARE

COACH DAVID STINSON AND HIS PLAYER 15-YR.OLD MAX GILPIN

As I said when this story first came out, there are no winners. But I am glad that absent any finding of true recklessness on the part of the coaching staff the jury came in with a just verdict.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/09/17/kentucky.coach.trial/index.html

A jury Thursday acquitted a former Louisville, Kentucky, high school football coach of all charges connected to the heat-related death of a player last year.

The jury found former Pleasure Ridge Park football coach David Jason Stinson not guilty of reckless homicide and wanton endangerment in the death of 15-year-old Max Gilpin, who collapsed during a practice on August 20, 2008. The teenager died three days later.

Gilpin's body temperature reached 107 degrees, officials say.

Stinson also was acquitted on a charge of wanton endangerment.

It is clear that this has had a devastating effect on the family as well as the coach, who clearly lost a member of his extended "family" by losing a player.

Days after he was charged, Stinson told supporters that his "heart is broken." "Part of my life has been taken away," he said, according to WHAS. "I no longer teach, and I no longer coach at the school that I love. ...

"The one thing people keep forgetting in this is that I lost one of my boys that day," he said. "It was a boy that I loved and a boy that I cared for and a boy that meant the world to me. That's the thing that people forget. And that's a burden I will carry with me for the rest of my life."

The local news actually adds more detail than the national story from CNN. While I personally do not care for the practice of using conditioning drills as punitive measures by coaches, it seems like the team was allowing for kids to bow opt out and get water if necessary.


http://www.herald-dispatch.com/news/briefs/x912513692/Ky-coach-acquitted-in-player-death

The jury deliberated for about 90 minutes, and Stinson hugged defense attorney Brian Butler after the verdict was read.

“That’s why they came back quickly, because he was innocent,” said Butler, who characterized the prosecution as a “witch hunt.” Stinson left without speaking to reporters.

Players said he ordered the gassers as punishment for the lack of effort they showed at practice on a day where the temperature and heat index were both 94 degrees.

Prosecutors relied on a series of Gilpin’s teammates who testified that several teens became ill during the gassers, vomiting or bowing out of the running with ailments.

Several medical and athletic training experts also testified for the prosecution, saying Gilpin suffered from exertional heat stroke, which led to his death. One witness, University of Connecticut associate professor Douglas Casa, said Gilpin could have been saved if he’d been immersed in ice water almost immediately after collapsing on the field.

Hurlbert said he hopes the case prompts coaches to pay closer attention to their players.

Stinson’s defense attorneys relied on Pleasure Ridge Park players who testified that, while they ran sprints, there were only a few more than normal. Three of Gilpin’s classmates, along with his stepmother, testified that Gilpin complained of not feeling well throughout the day he collapsed.

This is one of the great difficulties for a coach to deal with is you don't know what the kids are doing on their own time to make the team. Sometimes these details are disclosed on the initial physical evaluation forms, many times they are not.

Some schools have athletic trainers on staff, but not always on the field at all times, others do not for budgetary reasons.

There is a need for better education to filter down to the coaching staffs as far as when and where and how you can ride these kids hard physically, but the bottom line from a philosophical standpoint should always be:

YOU ARE CONDITIONING KIDS TO BUILD THEM UP, NOT TO TEAR THEM DOWN.

Defense medical experts told jurors that it appeared a combination of heat, the use of the dietary supplement creatine and attention deficit disorder drug Adderall, and being ill were the main factors that contributed to Gilpin’s death, which they called an accident.

The medical experts also said little could have been done to save Gilpin because his temperature was so high for so long before he made it to the hospital and began cooling down.

This would be the ultimate end result--you would see less people willing to participate as coaches due to the potential liability and less qualified people to boot. The ripple effect would have been felt throughout all sports.

Jimmie Reed, executive director of the Kentucky Football Coaches Association, said he followed the trial daily and expected most of the coaches in the state were doing the same. He said a conviction would have had lasting ramifications for all teams.

“Any type of coaching where you’re dealing with student-athletes, where there’s some type of tragic accident, then it would have been scrutinized to the liability of the coach no matter what the sport was,” he said.

A COACH'S WORST NIGHTMARE

Let me start our by saying that no matter what happens in the future with this case, THERE ARE NO WINNERS HERE AND THERE WILL BE NO WINNERS HERE. NOT WITH THIS STORY.


Parents who sent their son to play high school football have lost a son.

A coach who was trying to build up his team--broke it down--and lost a player in the worst way possible.

Both parties will live with unanswerable questions for the rest of their lives and nobody can settle those for them.

One of my larger pet peeves as a conditioning coach has always been when sport coaches use conditioning as punishment for their players. It's counter-productive from a conditioning standpoint and there has to be a better way to enhance mental toughness without losing players in this manner.

The coaches quote "telling them they would do 'gassers' until someone quit" was met with the ultimate law of unintended consequences here. A parent watching the practice from a nearby soccer field is reported to heard the coach say "numerous times that all he needed was one person to say that they quit the team and all of the suffering and running and heat would be all over."

Unfortunately, one of them did quit.

No water breaks and no athletic trainer on site to possibly head off this tragedy is going to leave both the school and the coach vulnerable from a legal standpoint.

Maybe it is time for this issue to move from that of a pet peeve to a crusade.

Part of the problem that there have been 39 similar deaths in the last 13 years according to the National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury Research at the University of North Carolina.

Maybe three deaths per year has become an "acceptable loss" in the name of high school football. To me, one is unacceptable especially since the risks are well known, well-documented and well-reported and disseminated annually.

And yet some of the old-school mentality remains.

According to Grant Teaff, executive director of the American Football Coaches Association, "It goes with the profession that it's a unique sport and conditioning is a part of it." The ACFA membership includes professional, collegiate and high-school coaches.

Most of these deaths occur during the first few days if practice when players are just beginning to get acclimated to the heat and the unique conditioning needs of the sport. As I've said before, the risks are well-known.

Practices will always be a time where coaches are trying to build both physical and mental toughness of their teams in an intensely competitive environment, coaches are looking for these early season trials to translate into late victories during the season.

I understand the building of mental and physical toughness and all of that, but the death of young man should not be a part of the sport or the profession. That is a loss that no team or coach should ever be forced to try and overcome.

------------------
FROM USA TODAY STORY:
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/preps/football/2009-01-26-coach-indicted_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip

The sophomore's death certificate shows he died of septic shock, multiple organ failure and complications from heat stroke, three days after working out for two to three hours in temperatures that felt like 94 degrees. No autopsy was conducted.

Prosecutors have declined to say why they chose Stinson in what is believed to be an
unprecedented case of criminally charging a coach in a player's heat-related death. Witnesses have said in court filings that the coach was running his players hard, telling them they would do "gassers" — sprints up and down the field — until someone quit. One parent at a nearby soccer field said in an e-mail to the school that he didn't see the team get regular water breaks.

"This is not about football, this is not about coaches," Stengel said after the hearing. "This is about an adult person who was responsible for the health and welfare of a child."

--------------------------------
FROM LOCAL NEWS REPORTS:

http://www.wlky.com/cnn-news/18541445/detail.html

LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- A football coach has been charged with reckless homicide in the heat-related death of a high school athlete.

David Jason Stinson was indicted Thursday.

Max Gilpin, 15, died Aug. 23, 2008, three days after he collapsed at a
Pleasure Ridge Park High School football practice after coaches
allegedly refused to let players take water breaks.

Temperatures were in the 90s.Gilpin was rushed to a hospital where he died three
days later. The coroner's report shows Gilpin's body temperature was
107 degrees when he passed out."I don't feel it was proper at
all," said Commonwealth's Attorney Dave Stingel. "They should've been
much more concerned and responded much quicker."

Stengel asked police to investigate wrongdoing in the teen's death.
"A reasonable person should have understood that this result could happen,
fails to perceive that and prevent the end result. That's the level of
proof we will have to go at," the prosecutor said. "I knew it could go
either way. I made no recommendation. We put it in front of the grand
jury -- told them what we saw as the facts and they made their decision."

Stengel said the coach asked to testify before the grand jury, but members refused to hear him.Stinson's attorney said his client maintains his innocence and looks forward to his day in court to clear his name.

"It is a tragedy, and it is unfortunate but I don't think the
indictment of coach Stinson doesn't necessarily resolve that issue,"
said Alex Dathorne, Stinson's attorney.Stinson is expected to appear at an arraignment Monday in Louisville.JCPS representative Lauren Roberts said Stinson has been notified of the indictment and has been reassigned immediately away from PRP to a district office pending the outcome of the case.

In a statement released Thursday afternoon, Gilpin's family said, "We intend to
closely monitor the prosecution and expect anyone responsible for Max's
death to be held accountable."

HAPPY 25TH ANNIVERSARY - LEE ELIA

Today is the 25th anniversary of the Lee Elia tirade, which surprisingly did not make the mainstream media sports highlight shows. Too many bleeps.

To celebrate, lets review some of the all-time favorite coaching tirades.

WARNING: THIS BLOG POST IS UNCENSORED - DO NOT WATCH ANY OF THE HIGHLIGHTS OR READ ANY OF THE NARRATIVE IF YOU HAVE VIRGIN EARS--OR IF YOU'RE A PANSY--OR A LIGHTWEIGHT--OR YOU'RE LIMP-WRISTED--OR YOU DON'T LIKE TO HEAR GOOD OLD-FASHIONED CUSSING BY THE GUYS WHO MADE IT AN ART FORM. BECAUSE THIS ONE HAS IT UP THE OLD WAZZOO!!!!

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY LEE.

LEE ELIA ENDEARS HIMSELF TO THE CUBBIE FAITHFUL




ROBERT MONTGOMERY KNIGHT AT HIS FINEST.



TOMMY LASORDA TAKES UP A FIVE MINUTE HIGHLIGHT FILM OF TIRADES - A REAL HALL OF FAMER



COLORADO FB COACH DAN HAWKINS ON DEDICATION TO THE PROGRAM AND MOTIVATION.



OKLAHOMA STATE FB COACH MIKE GUNDY DEFENDS HIS BOYS AND HATES ON THE MEDIA



HERMAN EDWARDS PUTS IT ALL IN PERSPECTIVE



DENNIS GREEN KNOWS THE BEARS BETTER THAN THE BEARS KNOW THEMSELVES.



JIM MORA QUESTIONS HIS TEAMS POST SEASON CHANCES



JOHN CHANEY IS GOING TO HAVE TO CHOKE A BITCH



HAL MCRAE TIDYS UP HIS OFFICE AFTER A MEDIA BITCH ASKS A STUPID-ASS QUESTION



GOOSE GOSSAGE LOVES THE MEDIA AS MUCH AS I DO. A HALL OF FAME TIRADE.