New iPhone app out-called iHydrate. Good tool that will help coaches and athletic trainers to develop a program to monitor water weight loss by their athletes. It calculates the amount of fluid that needs to be drunk by athletes post exercise based upon their weight loss, temp and humidity.

Check it out online at iHydrate.

Copyright 2010 Toronto Star Newspapers Limited
The Toronto Star


July 8, 2010 Thursday


SECTION: NEWS; Pg. A1

HEADLINE: 'Toxic tornado': Out-of-control amateur coaches mentally abuse players with long-lasting effects;
Direct or indirect abuse occurs in about 40 per cent of youth hockey, baseball and football games, researchers say



Amateur sport coaches routinely commit psychological abuses against young athletes that trigger a "toxic tornado" with long-lasting effects on their development, say researchers.


About 40 per cent of youth hockey, baseball and football games contain either direct or indirect abuse, according to striking new data collected by JustPlay, a national sport research firm that logs critical incidents in youth sports leagues.


"No one has been monitoring it," says JustPlay president Elaine Raakman. "There's been no accountability. There has to be a framework in place to protect children."


Direct abuses include coaches berating or threatening players, inciting violent play and demoralizing young players.


Indirect abuses include coaches harassing officials, opposing players and spectators.


Josh Shaddock says such highly charged moments were part of the environment where he played as a 13-year-old in the Greater Toronto Hockey League last season.


"My coach would scream and freak out over things in practices, breaking sticks and singling me out in the dressing room saying, 'You don't care about this game, you have no commitment to the team and shouldn't be playing,'" the teen says.


"He'd say, 'I told you to take that kid's head off and you didn't. You're not listening to me.'"


Shaddock eventually quit the team.


He sat out the last half of the season and playoffs.


"It made me not want to go to my games and practices because I was going to get yelled at. It demoralizes you."


A complaint to the league triggered a hearing in which GTHL officials ruled the coach committed four instances of misconduct.


The coach was suspended for four games and placed on probation for one year.


The JustPlay data is collected from reports filled out by officials after each game played in hockey, soccer, basketball, football and baseball leagues across the country who hire the company to monitor critical incidents.


The findings indicate coaches are most often the cause of abusive conduct in youth sports.


There were 9,343 critical incidents logged in 23,852 youth hockey games played in 2007 in three large Ontario leagues, according to the data. (JustPlay does not reveal the names of its clients for privacy reasons.)


That works out to incidents of abuse in 39 per cent of all games.


That rate of abuse was consistent with incidents logged over three seasons (2005-2008) in two community football leagues in the Golden Horseshoe, with 97 incidents in 259 games.

During the same time frame, officials in two youth baseball leagues in southern Ontario reported 36 per cent of games including incidents of abuse.

The comments recorded by officials in their reports tell the stories.

"The head coach was taunting fans and screaming obscenities loudly in the rink," one minor hockey official reported.

"Coaches for both teams showed a complete disrespect for myself and my linesman," another wrote. "Game was a mildly intense game that became more intense as a result of the conduct of the adults in the arena.

"The players' conduct was a direct result of the childish behaviour of both coaching staffs."

Such incidents in youth sports are "pervasive," says Garrett Kramer, managing partner of Inner Sports, a New Jersey-based mental conditioning firm for players and coaches.

"It's very sad to me," Kramer says. "This goes on way too often. Kids are very confused by this. Here's a supposed mentor and someone they respect clearly acting like a lunatic.

"Kids are at the mercy of that kind of errant behaviour."

Academic studies have shown the potential impacts on young people who experience abusive behaviour in sports include elevated distress and anxiety, fear of failure, verbal and physical aggressiveness, lower performance and burnout.

"The kids describe it as a toxic tornado on the sidelines," says Nicole LaVoi, a researcher at the University of Minnesota.

LaVoi has co-authored several studies into egregious behaviour in youth sports.

"Whether or not they're being directly yelled at, the indirect effect is much more potentially impactful than the direct abuse of one parent or coach. It could ultimately be contributing to athletes dropping out of sport."

In addition to being mere bad form, abusive behind-the-bench conduct is also in breach of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, say researchers.

The convention's provisions require respect for the "physical, sexual and psychological integrity of the child," "sound and appropriate training, advice and guidance from competent individuals" and assurance that "sport is practised in a culture of understanding, peace, tolerance, equality of sexes, friendship and fair play."

There is a "rich intersection between the rights of the child in general and the rights of the child in sports," says LaVoi.

"Because we see sports in a play context, we think human rights concepts don't apply because they're so serious but, in fact, it is very applicable."

Kim Dorsch, associate professor of kinesiology and health studies at the University of Regina, who has authored a forthcoming academic paper with JustPlay's Raakman on their research, says the sheer volume of troubling incidents requires a response.

"We're trying to say it is a violation and if you're committing this, Canada has to do something about this," says Dorsch.

A Star investigation into anti-social conduct by coaches in the Greater Toronto Hockey League last year found repeated incidents of bench bosses threatening officials, making obscene gestures and exploding with profane tirades that earned them "travesty of the game" suspensions.

One coach had amassed 19 game suspensions and seven major penalties since 2001 for disputing officials' calls - six of them including verbal abuse of the official.

Another had collected 15 major penalties, including seven for "disputing a call with verbal abuse," and one for "trash talking."

Last season, 33 GTHL coaches were ejected from games on at least two occasions, league records show.

Dr. Paul Dennis, a sport psychologist and special adviser with the GTHL, says the emphasis from many coaches on winning at all costs lies at the heart of abusive behaviour.

"I think it's hurting young players' development," he said.

"It's athletic Darwinism - survival of the fittest. That's not the way it should be.

"There are certainly increasing incidents of anxiety levels among young athletes."

9343

No. of critical incidents logged in 2007 in three OHL leagues

39

Percentage of games in which incidents of abuse occur

33

No. of GTHL coaches ejected from games at least twice

Please read below for another chapter in the sordid history of state/local govt subsidizing professional sports in the US. I like this article as it points out while a county in FL handsout millions to a pro baseball team (and a lousy one at that...), kids have to pay to play on the fields that tax dollars pay and maintain.

So much for lowering barriers to entry for kids to play sports. Is Florida concerned with the estimated $47 billion the obesity crisis costs all of us in healthcare costs each year?


Copyright 2010 Sarasota Herald-Tribune Co.
All Rights Reserved
Sarasota Herald Tribune (Florida)


June 30, 2010 Wednesday


SECTION: B; COLUMNIST; Pg. BN01

HEADLINE: Millions for the Orioles, pennies for the children

BYLINE: ERIC ERNST

HIGHLIGHT:

Sarasota County is spending $31million to renovate spring training facilities for the Baltimore Orioles.

BODY:


Sarasota County is spending $31 million to renovate a stadium for the Baltimore Orioles, a professional baseball team.

Meanwhile, claiming a shortage of money, it's charging children $2 an hour to play on fields their parents have already purchased with taxes.

This is not just a baseball story. Kids, through their parents, started paying extra in 2008 to play in public gyms, run on public soccer fields and exercise in weight rooms.

What's wrong with this picture? Plenty.

As a community, we value youth recreation enough to build public sports facilities for that purpose. We want children to exercise. Sports are one way, although not the only way, to accomplish that.

However, after pooling our money for buildings and equipment, it makes no sense to make their use too expensive for the audience we're trying to reach.

And we're headed in that direction.

Baseball is an apt example.

In Englewood last year, the field rental was about $3,500 for the Cal Ripken organization, according to longtime youth baseball organizer Bill Stiver Sr., who expects it to rise this year. That's not as much as uniforms, but it's right up there with lighting, another charge the county should absorb if it really wants to encourage youth sports.

More than 300 players paid $130 to join the Englewood league. That did not include the price of gloves or shoes or bats, which could easily add another $170. The cost would be higher if not for sponsors and concession sales.

The point is, sports can be expensive and anything that adds to the cost gives parents an excuse not to have their children participate.

As public policy, these fees are even more shortsighted considering the taxes already invested in facilities, the national push to combat obesity among the young and the recognition of sports as a tool to curtail juvenile delinquency.

In many cases, the fees amount to hidden taxes, assessed under protest through the volunteer organizations, such as Little League, that run the programming at the county sports parks.

Parents may not even know why their costs have risen.

"The kids aren't vocal at all," Stiver says. "They don't have a union. They don't have a spokesman going to a commission meeting, raising hell."

It's up to the rest of us to speak out.

Most of us would rather invest our tax money in the children who live here rather than a private entertainment business from Maryland.

If the county commissioners have the money to do both, fine. But they should not cry poor when it comes to one, then come up with $31 million for the other.

Eric Ernst's column runs Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Contact him at eric.ernst@heraldtribune.com or (941) 486-3073.

Highly recommend this new DVD from Bob Bigelow, the co-author of Just Let the Kids Play and a former NBA player. We have been fortunate to have Bob at some of our workshops we put on for basketball coaches.


This is to be the first of a few DVDs Bob will be producing on how to coach youth basketball. Bob has great insight on the right developmental approach to youth sports.


You can buy the DVD at BreakThroughBasketball.com.