Parents can ruin sports for kids, dad says

Father of seven-year-old bowler who was stripped of gold medal speaks out

“Parents ruin sports for kids and it’s been happening in multiple sports. It happens every year in sports. When it comes down to kids participating in sport, parents will do whatever they can to come out on top, and that’s sad.”

Todd Powell knows rules are meant to be followed, but says it’s really sad how young athletes can be negatively affected by the decisions of parents.

Powell is upset with the way things unfolded for his son’s mixed combo bowling team at the provincial championships Saturday at St. Pat’s Lanes in St. John’s.

Powell’s seven-year-old son, Grayson, was a member of the Riverdale Lanes team that had their gold medals stripped from them because two members of the three-member team — Grayson being one of them — violated the tournament’s dress code by not wearing the right colour of pants.

All bowlers have to wear black pants when they hit the lanes for an A competition in the Youth Bowling Canada (YBC) program.

When YBC NL president Gord Davis was made aware that a team might be in violation of the dress code, he acted upon the concern. A handful of parents expressed concern that one of the teams wasn’t adhering to the dress code and wondered why they were permitted to play anyway.

Davis followed the rules and informed the team that their scores wouldn’t count and the gold medals were eventually handed over to a Corner Brook team.

Powell doesn’t like how the situation was handled. He believes the situation could have been avoided if tournament officials did a check prior to the first ball being thrown.

Powell said he tried to find a pair of black pants for his son on the morning of the tournament, but was unable to find something suitable.

“Was I supposed to tell my kid he can’t participate in the sport because his parents can’t find him a pair of black pants? No, that’s wrong,” Powell said Wednesday from Conception Bay South. “Kids shouldn’t be

Todd Powell, father of seven-year-old bowler

turned away from sports on a technicality.”

Powell says the decision to take the medals away from his son’s team was all about who was going to get the gold medal.

“This was a deliberate way to get Corner Brook to win a medal. I don’t say it’s Mr. Davis’s decision, but whoever came forward and said this kid had the wrong colour pants on, they should be ashamed of themselves,” he said. “Parents ruin sports for kids and it’s been happening in multiple sports. It happens every year in sports. When it comes down to kids participating in sport, parents will do whatever they can to come out on top, and that’s sad.”

On Wednesday evening, Davis — in a post on the Corner Brook Centre Bowl Facebook page — said it has been decided by the executive to have the YBC program in Riverdale Lanes honour the team with a ceremony for gold medals.

The decision to revoke the team’s tournament gold medals could not officially be reversed provincially, Davis said, but, “We will make sure these kids are taken care of first because that is what we are all about.”

He also offered an apology for the decision to revoke the gold medals and the lack of information relayed to the Riverdale team.

“We want to ensure these kids stay in bowling and we do the best we can to help them grow with our sport,” Davis stated in the Facebook post.