Abuse In Youth Sports Essay

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There are two to four million coaches throughout the United States. Less than 20% of these coaches have received any type of training (Anderson, 2012). Most youth sports coaches around America have parents as the coach of the team. This can be a problem due to the favoring of playing time and a lack of training as well. Athletes need to be trained and coached by individuals who are going to make them better both on and off the court. This is where the training of coaches comes into play. From a parents perspective the individual that is coaching their kid is very critical to the process. For example, one in every four coaches is considered less than good as seen by parents of the athlete (Aleshire, 2003). In an observational and interview …show more content…

As a coach, abuse can get you into a lot of trouble, and it is proven that kids are being abused during practices. For instance, 45.3 of kids said they have been called names, yelled at, or insulted by coaches. Athletes are going to get yelled at from time to time, but never as a coach call your student athlete a name or insult them (Aleshire, 2003). Making sure that the students are safe is another part to abuse. If a student has an injury do not force them to play through it! 21 percent of athletes say they were at one point pressured to play with an injury Aleshire, 2003). This could come back to hurt a coach, they could possibly get sued if the injury were to get worse, or they could suffer morally from this as well. 17.5 percent of athletes said they have been hit, kicked, or slapped by a coach throughout their lifetime in the sport (Aleshire, 2003). Eight percent said that they have been called names with sexual connotations and three percent said they had been sexually abused (Aleshire, 2003). As a youth sports coach, abuse is not okay. For a coach at any level abuse is taken into consideration and could end up hurting the coach for the rest of their lives. Coaches need to make sure that they are trained properly in order for abuse to not