High School Baseball Coach Put on Leave After Rant

[ViolaSebastian]

I'm curious as to people's opinions on this. Evidently, a high school baseball coach/athletic director/teacher from Southern California (since when have high schools needed athletic directors??) was put on administrative leave after one of his players taped a seventeen minute long profanity laced rant and released it to the press. I've heard both sides of this--that it's verbal abuse or that it's just normal coaching strategy to encourage the kids to perform better. I was an athlete myself and while I've been on the receiving end of some yelling and rants, I can honestly say I've never experienced one quite like this...and just fair warning, there is A LOT of cursing, so probably NSFW.

http://deadspin.com/high-school-basebal ... 1579237663

[louisa05]

I'm curious as to people's opinions on this. Evidently, a high school baseball coach/athletic director/teacher from Southern California (since when have high schools needed athletic directors??) was put on administrative leave after one of his players taped a seventeen minute long profanity laced rant and released it to the press. I've heard both sides of this--that it's verbal abuse or that it's just normal coaching strategy to encourage the kids to perform better. I was an athlete myself and while I've been on the receiving end of some yelling and rants, I can honestly say I've never experienced one quite like this...and just fair warning, there is A LOT of cursing, so probably NSFW.

http://deadspin.com/high-school-basebal ... 1579237663

This sort of behavior from coaches was completely okay at the last school I taught at. The "it's just how sports are" excuse was used and the principal/head football coach was never questioned for calling players "ret*rd" or "dumbass" or on once occasion "motherf*cker". He, however, wrote a teacher up and threatened his job because he told a room full of seventh graders to "shut" their mouths, which was deemed to close to "shut up" and no one should ever say that.

At a speech meet once, while I sat quietly listening to my team chatting, a boy was complaining about a female teacher being too strict and demanding. A girl pointed out that she was downright kind compared to a male teacher who often yelled at students (and I taught in the room next door to him and knew that was true). The boy answered that it was different for the male teacher because he was a coach and sometimes he just "went into coach mode" and you had to expect that.

Bottom line: excusing any kind of verbal abuse based on coaching/sports just leads to ridiculous double standards.

[Jinger Jar]

Ten or so years ago, the boys varsity basketball coach at my school site lost his coaching position after team members and parents complained to administration about his profanity.

What people sometimes forget is that high school athletes, even if they're 6'9" and weigh 350 pounds, are still minors. If someone swore up a storm in a professional situation where no kids were present, they'd probably be fired. Why then, do they think it's Okay to use that kind of language with children?