Chicago public school coaches are in for a crackdown under a proposed city policy that explicitly bans everything from pushing, pinching or paddling athletes to "displays of temper.''
The massive overhaul of the Chicago Public High Schools Athletic Association bylaws follows allegations that began emerging last fall that at least four CPS coaches had paddled or hit athletes.
The new policy creates the possibility that coaches can be banned for life for just one rule violation. Previously, such punishment followed only "knowing and repeated'' rule violations.
It also mandates annual coaching training, requires that all coaches undergo criminal background checks and fingerprint analysis, and establishes a "pool'' of thoroughly screened candidates from which principals must now pick their coaches.
Prohibitions against corporal punishment and even "forcing a student to stand or kneel for an inordinate time" were listed elsewhere in CPS policy, but after the paddling scandal, CPS wanted to take a clear stand against a wide variety of corporal punishment, said CPS counsel Patrick Rocks.
"We're trying to send a message. We're trying to make it crystal clear that this is not acceptable behavior,'' Rocks said.
Several coaches supported the corporal punishment crackdown but worried that the prohibition against "displays of temper towards students'' was so vague that coaches could be unfairly saddled with complaints.
"I really understand where they are going, but you have to wonder a little who's going to be running things -- the kids or us,'' said Simeon boys basketball coach Robert Smith, who won state titles in 2006 and 2007.
"It's not going to bother my approach to coaching, but I don't think I should be suspended for yelling at kids.''
Former Bears Coach Mike Ditka couldn't pass the "displays of temper" rule as written and neither could many other coaches, said boys basketball coach Roy Condotti, who brought three teams to the state finals -- two at Chicago's Westinghouse High and one at suburban Homewood-Flossmoor High. He now serves as assistant coach at Nazareth Academy.
"Displays of temper. I don't know what that means. That's kind of a catchall,'' Condotti said. "Who interprets that?
"Are we going to get to the point where every practice is filmed so we have evidence? . . . Does that mean that every time Johnny gets yelled at at practice, Johnny can go home and tell mom, and mom wants to fire the coach?
"I don't think anybody could coach under that rule. I don't know how anybody would want to. . . . It's vague. And anything that's vague can be misinterpreted.''
Calvin Davis, the CPS Director of Sports Administration, said coaches can yell in the context of coaching and "I have no problem with that.'' The "displays of temper'' ban is intended to crack down on "cursing" at kids, he said.
"If you listen to some coaches, you hear language that is totally inappropriate. It has no place in our game. Neither do coaches that are grabbing kids' uniforms or yanking their [facemasks],'' Davis said.
For clarity, Davis said, he'd like to change the ban on "displays of temper'' to a ban on "unsportsmanlike'' conduct, something already mentioned elsewhere in the same policy.
But Rocks said he thought the proposed language was fine. Any complaints can be investigated on a "case by case'' basis, he said. In the meantime, annual coach training should give coaches more guidance on appropriate and inappropriate behavior and language.
And the world continues to get softer and softer. Will it ever stop?
Via: The Chicago Sun-Times
