Originally Posted by LongSufferingToady (Post 18009745)

If my dad were still alive and he saw this coach pull that stunt, and it was his daughter, he would have led the coach out the exit, arm on the coach's shoulder as if all is good and well, and once outside leveled the guy. This is the way.

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut (Post 18009212)

I think that's a pretty common dividing line here - "She's a girl"

Fellas, I absolutely understand if you don't watch girls sports. But let me tell you something - those girls are SAVAGES.

I've developed a theory as I've watched my oldest move up in youth athletics and its mostly that there isn't nearly as much separation athletically. There are some that are just a little more explosive, but by and large, these girls are all pretty similarly athletic.

They just hit a ceiling a bit that very very few of them break through. So for the lucky few that have outstanding coordination, they can 'skill' their way to the next level. But for the majority of them, if they want to stand out, they have to play physical as hell.

Girls soccer and basketball are where I've seen it most. And ultimately its what'll knock my daughter out -- she just isn't willing to scrum and the best girls out there are. These are not wilting little flowers out there -- a bunch these girls are physical and can be mean as hell. And even someone like my daughter, who needs to be a bit more physical, has been pushed to the point by one of those aggressive girls to get an elbow into their back or put a leg out when it wasn't strictly necessary.

I just think we have an odd and fairly arbitrary line we've drawn in a couple ways here. The girl thing being the first but the second is the strict "no touching" rule. And I get it -- that's the rule.

But my HS football coach took ****ing glee in making kids vomit. He would run guys until their legs literally folded under them. And we CELEBRATE that shit. Hell, we do it with Reid when he makes the rookies yack.

That is exponentially more dangerous than a ponytail tug. By FAR. I saw that same coach re-line an Oklahoma drill to set up a big kid to demolish a guy who'd shown up late to practice. He used the damn kid as a weapon. And again, Missouri High School Sports HoFer. And nobody every said boo about ANY of that.

It's just such a nothing line to draw. There's no danger to that girl. Far less than we see from 100 different coaches in 100 different ways. There are coaches that verbally berate their players in ways that will impact them negatively FAR more than what that girl got from having her hair tugged.

{shrug}

I just don't see this as the strict no-fly zone others do apart from the fact that the coaching association rules almost certainly expressly disallow it. But man, we let coaches get away with WAY worse and never give it a second thought.

Originally Posted by wazu (Post 18009224)

The girl thing definitely invokes emotions in people, myself included. I don't have a daughter but have two sons who played lots of sports growing up. The closest I can imagine would be if I looked out on the field or court and saw a coach open hand slap them across the face. I would have been flying out of those stands. Would like to think I'd restrain from physically assaulting an 81 year old but he would at least be getting an earful and we'd be out.