Don’t let sports break the sportsman/woman in your child

Ihave observed the shocking behaviour of basketball coaches in several inter-school girls’ basketball matches. have yet to see a coach encourage the players during a match but only see them constantly criticising and humiliating these young ones throughout.You see the coaches of both teams running around almost stepping onto the court screaming and using all possible abusive language on these young ones who are already stressed out on court and doing their best.Such shocking behaviour of coaches tears down self-esteem rather than builds it up.

These coaches create an unsafe learning environment for their young players. They use fear, hostility, humiliation and demeaning, disrespectful behaviour as “teaching” tools. They regularly kill the fun and passion that these young players once had for the sport. These coaches have lost their way and strayed far from the true mission of coaching.

The other day during the National Schools basketball games, coaches were seen going to the extent of calling players modaya (fool), worst player I have ever seen, booruwa (donkey), gona and someone who has come to waste my time. They kept shouting in front of all the spectators and I just couldn’t imagine how these young kids could take up all this humiliation which is indeed a grave form of child abuse. I heard a parent say that her child prefers to sit on the bench rather than play due to the unbearable abuse she has to encounter on the court. Another parent went on to say that her child frequently complains of headache and stomach pain just before matches as a means of not playing for the same reason. Another mother was seen sobbing since she could not bear to see her child being humiliated in public for no reason.

You’re NOT a good coach when you call an athlete out in front of the team, opponents and vast number of spectators and tell that athlete, “You’re the worst player I have ever seen, you are an ass, donkey or good for nothing player!” How is this kind of a comment constructive? Does it help a child understand exactly what he/ she is doing wrong and what they need to do to fix it and improve? How does it help a child learn? Does it motivate an individual to want to work even harder to improve? Does it help that individual feel good about themselves?

Winning seems to be the only goal of coaches who are in demand only if their team performs. Schools and parents turn a blind eye to this form of abuse since winning at even the cost of young ones seems to be the call of the day.

The mission of a coach is to teach young people and help them grow as individuals so that they become better people in the world, both on and off the field. There are far more important things at stake here than whether a team wins or correctly learns the rights and wrongs. Good coaches teach their athletes how to be better people in the world and they use their sport as nothing more than a vehicle for this teaching. The winning and losing outcomes are completely secondary to the teaching of valuable life lessons (playing as a team and sacrificing individual needs for the betterment of the team, handling adversity and failure, mastering fear and obstacles, working hard towards a faraway goal, learning to believe in yourself, being a good sport, playing by the rules, etc.)

Unfortunately no parent wants to speak up as they are assured that that will be the end of their child’s basketball career.Winning at any cost, destroying the self-esteem of young ones should be condemned and parents, spectators, school authorities, Basketball Federation and even child right activists should come forward to put an end to such degrading behaviour by coaches. Unless we do something fast and bring in a ruling where the coaches are kept on the bench and reprimanded for abusive language I cannot see an end to this barbaric behaviour. Although we expect sports to mould the character of our younger generation it seems to be moulding them into persons with lack of self-esteem and feeings of worthlessness.

My earnest request to all parents, principals and authorities is to please act fast and with a backbone before a child resorts to self harm or even suicide due to such treatment. Dr Shehan Perera Mount Lavinia