f13.net

I've gotten into watching ESPN News in the mornings with breakfast, mainly because I want to see highlights from the previous night's action. Lately, they've had instead of highlights, video from the "Mike and Mike" radio show on ESPN Radio. It's not a bad show, so I watch it when I'm not reading with my morning repast as well.

This morning, they had a story about a 7th grade basketball coach. This coach apparently handed out a "Crybaby Award" to the player on his team that he thought whined the most. And I don't mean he just labeled the kid that in practice and made him run more laps, I mean he actually had a TROPHY made with the words "Crybaby Award" and a kid's name on it, and gave it to the kid at the end of the year Banquet with all the other players, and all the parents and such. The coach is also a 3rd grade special ed teacher, and has been suspended, is being forced to go to "sensitivity training" and cannot coach again.

Now... what the fuck is that? I have no problem with the coach riding a whiny kid pretty hard in practice, mainly because I do believe kids are coddled way too much these days. Getting rode hard by the coach is either going to be a motivation for the kid to buck up or a reason for the kid to run away from sports forever.

But embarrassing a kid like that at a fucking banquet? Jeebus, that's fucking cruel.

Thoughts?

That's something that's just not needed.  They did the right thing, that guy has no business coaching children.  Really, if you have a problem with a kid on the team, take them aside and talk to them about it.  It can work pretty effectively.  I tanked a ladder match once in high school tennis and got bitched out pretty bad by my coach, but at least he never brought it up in front of the team or gave me an award at the end of the year banquet for "player that loses games on purpose because he felt like it."

Being a person that abhors public humiliation, I would find what he did worse than if he physically hit me in practice or booted me off the team.  I'd get over a coach thumping me in the head, I don't think I'd play for a while after going through that.  

Kids don't need emotional scars like that. Growing up is hard enough.

I bet his special-ed technique was "to beat the stupid out of them."

For the children... Oh fuck it yeah it was insensitive but fuck guys if the little shit wasnt such a sniveling little bitch then maybe he wouldnt have been singled out. Maybe mom needs to pop her tit out his mouth and let the boy grow the fuck up. The real world aing all happy fun time ya know. We had awards like this on our football team and it was one hell of a motivator but was more of a joke than anything else.

I have no problem with the coach "showing up" the kid in practice or something. Hell, hang fucking pacificers from the kid's locker if you need to.

My problem was that it was at a banquet with not only his parents, but other people's parents, other kids, school officials, all kinds of people. If it was meant as a lesson, it should have been kept within the team. Or discussed with the parents of the kid if it was becoming a problem outside the team mechanic. Doing it at a banquet was just tacky, and needlessly humiliating.

In 7th grade? I don't know if I'd apply the football mentality to other sports. I've seen how pop warner coaches act and I'd never any of my progeny near that.

Depends on the spirit in which it was presented. The articles I've read suggested that everyone on the team was given an award of some sort; were there other 'funny' awards handed out? If so, then either the kid in question is an oversensitive pussyboy or the parents are on the fast track to coddling him into effeminacy. Life isn't easy if you can't laugh at your foibles, especially if they're gratingly obnoxious to those around you. (As someone who has always had a problem doing so, I should know.)

If the above wasn't the case and the kid was singled out while the rest of the team was praised, or at least treated seriously, then that's an entirely different story. No point in making the kid a pariah.

See I have the feeling it was meant as one of those hey dumbass we are anoyed by ya but lets all laugh about it. type things. I bet the team were the ones who voted as well. Course the media has to make it so someone is the bad guy else there wouldnt be a story right?

As per sensationalized trends, I think the kid ought to consider himself lucky that his teammates didn't sodomize him with the trophy after the banquet.

With football in Texas, where I grew up, this kind of stuff wasn't abnormal. If a guy was a whiner, he was ridden by the team first, and if the coaches got wind of it, he busted the teams chops rather than the whiner. That style pretty much shut people up or they were weeded out. Doing it at a banquet though is going outside the team code. What you do on the team is supposed to stay in the team, and your not supposed to publicize your problems. Also, this kid was in 7th grade, which puts him at about 13-14 years old in a time most of us remember as horribly akward. There is no such thing as a good-hearted public ribbing in those years. That stuff hits home.

Just wanted to point out that the kid got a crybaby award, and has been living up to it ever since. Not that it was appropriate for the coach to do it, but I found it oddly ironic that nobody has brought this up yet.

The coach was probably doing it for some fun among the team....I doubt it was the first time the subject ever came up.

I swam for a couple years in HS, and my first year we started handing out "Flipper" awards to people who did stupid stuff at meets. The original Flipper was a kid that was unapologetically stupid....one relay race, he jumped in for his leg 2 laps too early, jumping right into me. Thus, he was dubbed flipper. Another teammate and I actually built a trophy for it, and now it's treated as a "spirit" award some 12 years later. It was originally not far removed from the Crybaby....although it was created by the team itself, not the coach.

Bring the noise.
Cheers..............

See, if the team does it, I got no problem with that. I would have no problem if the coach did it to the kid in practice with the rest of the team. Sure, it's harsh but if the kid is such a big whiner, he probably deserved the award. And like someone said, what goes on with the team stays within the team.

It's the place he chose to do it that bothers me the most. You could put some silly awards in a banquet, especially if you handed out a few of them. But sounds to me like the kid was singled out for the humiliation in a totally inappropriate place.

/agree

It is one thing to 'motivate' a kid at a closed practice, where only his teammates and the coaching staff will see it. To purposely humilate a kid in front of strangers shows that this guy has a couple of screws loose.

I bet he cried about winning the Crybaby award.

That kid was lucky. My little cousin was just about forcibly sodomized by the seniors in his gym class, along with 7-8 other kids, and one particularly unlucky kid actually got the whole deal.

...Naturally, nothing ever came of it. The kids who did it got suspended quietly for something like 2 weeks. The kids sued (except for my cousin) and all settled out of court for cash since they live in a shitty white trash town.

That coach needs to be brained with the award. I'm talking brains splattered on the wall in a gray, gooey mess.

Adolescence is hard enough. This kid will probably be ostracized for years. They'll be lucky if he doesn't walk into the school with a gun and open fire on kids and teachers or commit suicide. Kids at that age are all uncontrolled hormones and this kid is going to be on one hell of a roller coaster ride.

Still, he's lucky he's not a girl. Girls are meaner than boys by a factor of 10. He'd almost certainly be driven to suicide if he was a girl.

He taught the whiney little fuck a life lesson and you are dogging him for it?  More coaches should give this shit out.  You probably come from the school that says everyone should play, even if it makes you lose, so ALL the players will feel good about themselves.

Good.  It saves the highschool coaches the trouble of weeding out the poseurs.

DAMN, YOU'RE HARD CORE. CAN I BE YOUR INTARWEB FRIEND?

Ever wonder where the jocks who beat up weaker kids and sodomize new teammates learn their behavior? It is parents like this guy.

In return, the whiny little fuck taught the coach a life lesson. DON'T BE A COCKMONGER OUTSIDE OF THE TEAM.

Again, I had no problems with the kid getting the "award" in practice or doing extra laps for being a whiny bitch. But see, parents tend to pissed off when their son gets called essentially a whiny pussy in front of other parents. You don't do that shit. As a coach, embarassing the kid in front of people outside the team just isn't done. It's being a dick.

And he paid for it.

Yes because we all know that later in life, such things happen all the time. Why just yesterday my boss got up in front of the entire office, and made a little speech about how much one of my co-workers was lazy before handing him a "You're Fired" trophy.

Seriously, what the hell are you on? It's obviously the public humiliation of someone more than the reprimand. And on top of that, when you are playing in middle school sports, it's not the time to be beating the win or die attitude into them just yet there Patton. They're not troops, they're 13.

In short, never breed.

Damnit, now we've agreed twice.  Clearly the end times are near.

I'll saddle the four horses.

I call Death!

Rope, check.

Now just agree with DarkDryad.  The earth will open up and Serek Dmart will take away all of the sinners for a marathon 24 hour testing of his newest game.

Is this the one which uses the power of your brain to manipulate Adolf Hitler's appendages while he fucks a gorilla/giraffe crossbreed?