Coach Behavior

Wow. The DWI thing is completely irresponsible but doesn’t necessarily make you a terrible person just a fool. All the other allegations on top of this don’t look great. However I do think that if a claim is to be credible the “out of fear of retaliation” anonymity needs to be dropped. If you are going to put a claim to something you need to put your name to it. But that is quite the bombshell especially as you can research more and dig deeper.

 

I was just about to write the same thing before I saw your post. If these allegations are true, the coach (and most likely the AD and Compliance AD as well) will be shown the door. There is no reason for this complaint to be anonymous. Anonymous is the part that makes it less credible. If it’s true, there won’t be retaliation because the coach will be adiosed. If it’s not, this anonymous complaint and those behind it should be retaliated against. Most of the claims should be easy enough to prove or disprove.

 

the idea that any allegations will automatically be believed and properly acted upon is quite naïve and silly.
The Yates report proves that bad acting is repeatedly excused by those in power.

if there were a whistleblower statute in place I can see not remaining anonymous, but as things now stand in sports players have zero power to defend themselves from retaliation .

The AD and Compliance director you want fired are exactly the people who would be in the chain of responsibility to decide on the allegations.

 

And how do you defend against false claims if everything is anonymous? What you seem to be missing is that quite often it doesn’t matter if the complaints are believed or proven to be true. The damage has been done. Are there bad actors? Absolutely and they should be dealt with. But I wouldn’t be too quick to paint the NWSL in the same light as youth or college soccer. Completely different animals.

As for the AD and Compliance person, that’s easy. If they played an ineligible player, it would have been signed off on by Compliance. That’s the definition of their job. Most likely sports information as well. It would be the first thing I’d look at because it is the easiest part of the accusation to prove or disprove. Along with the DUI. Either way, no reason for this particular complaint to be anonymous. If either of the above two are true, even if nothing else was, the coach will be fired. End of story. If they’re not, it puts the entire complaint into question. Why would people put in things that are not true if not to prop up and make the rest of their complaint seem legit?

 

Here is a funny one - coach sent me to trainer because I was injured and would not involve me in training because trainer said so!
http://www.theonlinecurrent.com/spo...cle_523a2e3c-3afd-11ed-bb0b-db646ce2ff98.html

 

Crazy article. Poorly written. The comments at the bottom are telling. Looks like there is some disagreement on the team about how they were all treated. Players these days scream mental health and abuse any time they aren’t playing. Not playing is not abuse. Expecting players to come in in shape is not abuse. If a player is stressed about the fact that they are not in shape, that is on the player and no one else. I know Danielle a bit and remember her as a player. She has always been hard working and demanding, but fair. Everyone I know that has played for her has enjoyed it.

Sadly, it is starting to look more and more like a few bad actors have made things miserable for everyone else. Of course there needs to be a happy medium and the days of Bobby Knight types are a things of the past as they should be, but players also need to be held accountable for their actions and willing to be coached.

 

One of the concerning narratives currently is the social media complaints by coaches such as Yolanda Thomas that is basically pitting male and female coaches against one another. I believe this might be more of a discussion for the gender debate section of the forum. People just fueling the fire and creating a further divide between genders when we should be promoting the game.

 

Quite agree

Perhaps we should look closer at the co-head coaching at University of the Pacific AND promote it! They seem to be doing a great job of it. I met them about a year ago and truly watched & listened if one tried to posture over another or tried to take lead. Honestly the opposite was true; they were very complimentary of each other in styles and when done, they always asked if there other coach if they missed anything or wanted to expand. They both played (helps one with defense; one played offense) and both wanted a chance at head coaching. They seized an opportunity using each other strengths and knowing if they can probably succeed more together being first time head coaches than otherwise. Granted I checked they just lose to Santa Clara 0-3 recently; but they did beat them the week prior 2-0!

 

False claims are very rare. It's far more likely abuse will go unreported or ignored by authorities, as the Yates report made clear, than a false report will be made.

https://xyonline.net/content/false-allegations-sexual-and-domestic-violence-facts

 

There is a difference between sexual and domestic violence and claims of mental health abuse. The former is fairly straight forward and easy to prove. The latter can be a very grey area where a player might very well think they were party to abusive behavior when they might not have been at all. Those are the difficult ones. Very subjective. For example, is it abuse if a coach doesn’t play a player because their fitness level is poor or just holding them accountable?

 

If the coach has a direct and respectful conversation about expectations and responsibilities regarding fitness that is fine but if the coach mocks and humiliates a player all during practice relentlessly belittling the play with comments about fitness that is not appropriate. There is no point to that other than to demean a player. It is actually easy to tell the difference between the two. There’s not really any grey areas or confusion

 

Maybe you haven’t coached soccer before, but I have had experiences and know many coaches who have said that they have communicated one message with an athlete only to discover the athlete took the message differently. There is a ton of grey because some people will just blame the coach, some will tune out the positives and focus on the negatives, some will simply not like the coach and think whatever is about to be said is bs anyway, and some will be realists and understand. There is not a one size fits all model in athletics and the exact same thing could be said to 5 different athletes and all 5 could take it differently. Try coaching for a few decades and you will see that everyone perceives information they receive differently.

 

There is a big difference between being firm and being hostile. A coach should know the difference. A player who is the subject of criticism may not, since receiving criticism is difficult especially in front of peers (which suggests that taking a player aside for criticism may be better than in front of the group). In most cases we hear about, however, the complaints are about coach patterns of behavior. That is where the problems are.

On the other hand, I was in a USSF licensing session where we got to watch part of a Portland Thorns training session when Paul Riley was coach. He came over and talked to us in the session. He made some personally demeaning comments about Amber Brooks who then was a Thorns player. I was shocked and knew right away that something seriously was wrong with him. So it does not always take a lot to know something is wrong.

 

Whispers makes a fair point. Even if feedback is delivered in an "empathy burger" or the "pro con con pro" model, many people, not just athletes, will take the first pro and con and fixate on that and not hear the rest of the message. After that, it's like the telephone game.

That's not to excuse poor behavior by coaches or players.

I read the article on Danielle. I don't know that her coaching style really has changed much from my observations of her on the club scene years ago and it's pretty consistent with the youth clubs in FL. The article refers to 'mindless robots' which I see as another term for joysticking. Pretty common in the SE club teams. I think we've all seen players who cannot play without being told what to do constantly. We've also seen players who can see the field and make things happen without constant direction. Either player on a team with an opposite style coach is going to struggle.

 

I'm not talking about individual personalities of some players that are sensitive and can't take corrective feedback. I am talking about having a consistent, transparent and clear message where guidelines and expectations are clear and objective and administered uniformly to the team. I am talking about delivering the message in a respectful and appropriate way. There is a difference and that isn't hard to figure that out. It seems most of the coaches here are thoughtful and dedicated to your profession. There are coaches out there that are not and are jerks that engage in hostile and inappropriate psychological manipulation that does nothing to bring about a positive result. It is like a player that engages in aggressive play because they don't have the correct skill set. Coaches that don't have the skill set to be effective also engage in "aggressive" tactics on the field to cover up their lack of competency and knowledge. LIke I said, there seems to be a lot of skilled and knowledgeable coaches here that are not like this.

 

Plus, even if it does bring about a positive result on the field, it is not acceptable. This is where we run into problems with those higher up than the coach, in the chain of command. They see good results and rationalize away the bad behavior.

 

I don’t know what coaches you have been around, but I could count the number of coaches like you describe on one hand out of hundreds of coaches that I know and have witnessed. LOL. And that’s my problem. The focus has become so much on the bad coaches that even the good ones are lumped into that pile. It’s a little like bad cops getting so much focus that we lose sight of all the good ones which are by FAR in the majority.

 

Guess we have just been lucky then - coaches at every level, one arrested and convicted for having sex with a player, next situation retaliation and black balling for bringing forward serious concerns about a favored teammate’s behaviors (involving things I can’t publicize on a public forum), next level retaliation, abuse, and behaviors that caused mental and physical harm to players, AD’s and club DOC’s that either ignored, excused, or blamed the players or tried to harm the players future in the sport. If you read the Yates investigation that is a sample of things going on at the youth and college level that just haven’t been publicized or addressed. Behind closed doors coaches have a lot of power over youth and young adults that have had a dream their whole lives. I have known several amazing coaches and appreciate and admire them. They have been a light in all of this but it didn’t stop or prevent the other from happening.

 

Coaching is no different than many other professions, there’s always “bad people” involved in every facet of life. Why should anyone expect that “coaching” is lesser (or more?) than any other profession?

People fail. It’ll happen in coaching, and is probably at the same rate or even lesser than any other career out there. It’s not like education is clean from bottom-up. It’s not like business is a wholesome profession devoid of issues.

Coaching just happens to get a little extra publicity because it’s more public than a General Manager at the local pub. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not condoning those who are guilty. I just don’t expect coaching to be “different” than most other professions. People can be crap, in everything and everywhere.

 

But it is different than other professions. Coaches have power and influence over children and young adults. Just like physicians, therapists, and teachers - they are trusted adults with authority over vulnerable individuals. They have a bigger responsibility to be ethical and conduct themselves appropriately. Are you really equating the responsibility of a youth coach with someone’s child to be the same as someone that runs a pub?

 

C’mon now. There’s dirty people in every profession. That’s the TL;DR snippet since you couldn’t gather that from what I said.

Why would a “role” automatically mean good people outweighs bad people in those positions? How many bad moms and/or dads are there? They have even more responsibility and there are still a bunch of sucky ones.

In my opinion, the “role” (or job) doesn’t change for people to just be morally and ethically responsible.

 

You are missing the point - if you take on a profession where you have control and authority over minors and you bully and exclude parents from having a voice or any involvement then you have a bigger responsibility to handle that authority appropriately. If you work in a pub (as an adult) and your boss is a jerk you quit or file a complaint or law suit and go work somewhere else. Abusive coaches can kill your soccer future and aspirations and cause irreparable psychological harm to children. You don’t see a difference there?

 

Why are you talking about youth coaches when the issue at hand is the NWSL where all are adults. Doesn’t make it right, but that’s a much different situation. And think about how many coaches there are at all levels across the country. A bad few out of literally thousands and thousands doesn’t mean all should get painted with the same brush.