Interesting Article
 

I found this article online:


Calif. Softball Coach Sued for Emotional Distress, Civil Rights Violations, Sex Discrimination 04-03-2006 4:10 AM

ARCADIA, Calif. -- When Michael Oddenino's teenage daughter complained that her softball coach was insulting her teammates, he took the dispute off the diamond and into a court.

Oddenino, an attorney, filed a lawsuit in Superior Court claiming coach Don Riggio inflicted emotional distress on a player when he called her "a 2-year-old" and frequently called other players idiots.

The suit sought $3 million for intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress, negligence, a civil rights violation, and sex discrimination.

But Superior Court Judge Jan Pluim dismissed the case, writing in her March 14 decision that there is nothing wrong with "a coach pushing an athlete to excel, and in so doing, using words that in another context would be considered rude, demeaning and even intimidating."

The suit had alleged that Riggio "took advantage of his position of authority to engage in an abusive pattern of excessive intimidation and humiliation of the female players, frequently calling them `idiots,' and belittling them for minor errors."

Said Riggio: "I'm just glad it's over. Now we can move forward and do what we're there for, and that's to coach."

What an idiot. Hope I don't get sued.:D

Common sense prevails for once.

Bullying
 

I have always been a little uncomfortable with grown men yelling at teenage girls. It reeks of bullying to me. If you are a coach you can instruct my daughter, you can correct my daughter, you can even punish my daughter ( by restricting her playing time) or punishment of that nature. BUT if you think you are going to call my teenage daughter stupid or other belittling, degrading names you are going to deal with me. Now am I going to file a law suit, not likely, but when I am done talking to the coach I'm betting he doesn't call my daughter belittling, degrading names anymore.
Girls in our great country have huge self-imaging issues,major depression issues, eating disorders are rampant (espically in athletes), 3 out of 5 girls are sexually assaulted before age 18. Then some ROLE MODEL/Leader of my daughter is gonna bully her by calling her names-not today,not this week and not this season.

And that my friends is a promise.

AMEN!
I coach my daughter in the summer. I can't think of any reason to bully/belittle any of my girls. extremely counter-productive. Firm but fair is my goal. I have seen other coaches who use profanity in front of their girls. throw stuff etc, etc. Nice role models.
My daughter would never be allowed to play for such a coach, regardless of the level. The almighty "W" isn't worth it.

I agree that a coach should be the leader of the team and there should be some intelligent limitation on how s/he acts towards players.

I, also, believe it is the parents responsibility to do two things if they disagree with a coach's methods:

1. Monitor the action of the team and find another if you do not care for the coach's actions;

2. If such a thing does occur, instead of whining and crying about it, take the opportunity to teach your child a lesson about how others act in the real world. Tell them NOT to accept such actions personally. As cliche as it may seem, remind your child of the age-old playground retort, "sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me!" Ridiculous? Maybe, but it is true. Teach your children now that other people's words and opinions are nothing more than that.

There is no doubt that somewhere along the way, your daughters will experience such action first or second-hand. They just as well learn now that not everyone conducts themselves in the manner in which you/she/we expect or approve.

Meanwhile, get together with other parents and find a new coach.

Sticks and Stones
 

I ,100 % agree about finding another coach/ team. That pretty much for me is a no-brainer.

I do have concerns about expecting a teenage girl to blow off the remarks of an authority figure/ role model with a childhood rhyme. For many young ladies they are looking to adults to provide examples on how to interact in the world. Calling others names is not how to interact in this SITCH. It is IMO bullying. Not a skill I want my daughter to learn. It's one thing if a classmate calls her a name and learning the sticks and stones lesson but a whole nother ball game when an adult does that to her.

Words are important. How they are used is also very important. Going beyond the obvious slurs that we use in our society we can look at numerous examples of how someone being called a name can impact them.

Being called a communist in the 50's took away your career in Hollywwod.

Nowadays being called a terrorist can get you locked up without any of the rights that we have traditionally held dear to our hearts. I am not sure of the exact wording that is used but if they label you "that exact wording" the government can come to your house,remove you , not tell anyone and lock you indefinetly. Not saying that is happening on any large scale but it could happen. So in these two very isolated cases words/labels did matter.

So adults calling my child names will be dealt with.

Another young lady calling my young lady names-I will teach her sticks and stones......

P.S. Just read the paper. The term is "enemy combatant".....

Social paranoia aside, I disagree.

A word is only as hurtful as one allows it to be. This is why I suggested you indoctrinate children now. As it is, we already have enough people filing complaints with whomever will listen about being offended by this or that.
I'm offended that I have to listen to such drivel, but I'm not filing complaints and law suits.

As far as the role model issue, I'm with Charles Barkley.

History has shown that most of the alleged communists were, in fact, communists. Should actually being a communist affect your career? Different question. But, in large part, the righteous outrage was a cover.

BTW, in case you missed the memo from the now revealed KGB files, the Rosenbergs actually were communists agents, too.

Complainers
 

Dakota- you make my point for me.. MOST. So if a few innocents we caught up, in the purge, well we can live with that. It wasn't me or mine.

Irishmafia- Agreed that we have too many people complaining and running around with hurt feelings. But that doesn't cause me to stop listening to the ones who have legimate complaints.

I am also with Charles Barkley on the role model issue.

We could go round and round about this. I see grown men yelling at young girls I smell bully. No matter if they coach softball. preach on Sundays, or work at 7-11.

In the future I won't try to be so aware of our governments looooooong history of abusing unpopular people, minoritys and people who don't agree with the status quo. Then I won't be paranoid I will be brain dead.

My point was... quit using political cliches as if they were true.

I am on the middle of the fence on this issue. I, being a large male coach figure should never get in the face and yell at a small female player. I do coach in a small rec league, and am UIC of the softball league, and a park board member...so I get to deal with all sorts of stupid coaches! As mentioned above I agree that you have a huge intimidation factor over these youth players, and leave a lasting impression on them with your words and actions, but also I think parents should be there to guide players though things. Life is rough, and there will be times when you deal with bully figures and knowing how to let it slide is going to have to be in your nature or you will not survive. There are a million examples, but one that fits into the bully catagory is the following: large internal company meeting preparing for a customer presentation a Sr VP of our company enters the room 1/2 way through one persons review waits about 2 minutes then says "hey, I need to get to another meeting but I wanted to let you know your slides look like s--t, just so you have no doubt and might think they look good." Now do we run and find another VP to work for? Maybe, but those things take time in the corporate world several months and quiting is not an option.....too many bills to pay. Might argue it is different than a teenager vs coach, but jr level engineer (30-32) vs Sr. VP (50-55) is very close to the same level of respect / intimidation. Lessons learned young will lead to better ability to survive later.

Like I said I am on the fence, work vs an activity that should be fun are different and I agree taking crap from an abusive coach is not something I would let me kids deal with either....only debate is what each persons defination of abusive is.

Remember, those in the government reflect the people who put them there.

This country is split too evenly into the apathetic, over-moral dictators and under-achieving I-have-enough-money-so-the-ramifications-of-my-opinions-should-they-be-adopted-by-some-idiot-don't-affect-me self-righteous pinheads. The rest of us understand the purpose of the republic of the United States, but make too much sense to be heard by the sheeple.:D

Ed,
It might have gone over the heads of most, but I got it. Hope things are well!