AAU

[DownTownTonyBrown]

Originally posted by Almost Always Right

Yes I am a Bobby Knight "fan" and have been all my life. I do realize that he has done some things that he should not be proud of. He has admitted that most of things were in a moment of overreaction.

This is the problem. He may have a great coaching record and he may have also have taught some kids some good things BUT it is his lack of self-control that gets him in trouble. Again and again and again.

For many years Knight always looked like a red-hot kettle just ready to boil over and explode. He doesn't look that way anymore.

It's a package deal - if your eyes aren't open going in, you tend to get all facets not just the favorable ones. Experience teaches. And if your experience is getting yelled at, and publically humiliated, like the little 11 year-old girl in the original post, that's what you learn - and accept - and will teach to your kids - and other people's kids, if you're their coach. And the pain and suffering continues until someone breaks the pattern.

Screaming and hollering, yelling, public humiliation are not what I would consider intelligent correction methods - especially coming from an adult to an 11 year-old. Fear is a powerful motivator but it is not a very healthy one. And from an adult to a child, it can very easily be abusive. Adult to adult between physical equals, this method is not very successful - remember a couple of years back, the NBA player (another noted hot-head) that choked his coach. The abuse wasn't well received.

In summation, I feel that anyone that operates this way from a position of designated authority or from greater physical strength, is likely a "small, angry, vindictive" person. And vindictive is not really the explanation I would have chosen because it is not an attitude of paying someone back for what they did to you. I tend to think it is deeper than that. It is more of an attitude of lashing out at others for your own personal shortcomings or inabilities - it's that bubbling, seething calderon of anger from an unknown, or yet undiscovered, cause.

I don't feel screaming at kids builds character strength or resoluteness but rather develops yet another bubbling calderon. For those that think this is okay, I suggest you check your experience. What were you taught? What pattern are you in and what are you teaching?

Wow! That's pretty deep for a public discussion.