Prep Football: Clean Up the Verbal Violence
No one ever will confuse a football sideline with the inside of a church.
There's no quiet reflection going on. Not much decorum. Way too much physical energy. And a lot more spitting.
I accept that.
What I don't accept is the verbal violence that far, far too many of our high school teams engage in. While coaches turn a deaf ear. Or, sadly, in more than a few cases, contribute to with their own verbal violence.
At one of the games I went to Friday night, I was standing on the sideline of a team that had one of its defenders make a big hit on a running back.
Which prompted a teammate, a backup standing near me, to launch into one of the most disturbing rants I've heard in a while. And I've heard plenty of disturbing rants at prep games.
The kid on the sideline began shouting something along these lines:
(Deleted) him up! Kill the (deleted)! Bury him! Kill the (deleted)! (Deleted) KILL him! That's it! KILL the (deleted). Bury him in the dirt! (Delete) him up! The (deleted)!"
And like that. That's just a snippet. It went on and on and on, with little variation on those few "thoughts."
It struck me later it was exactly the kind of language you might expect from a spectator to a prison-yard brawl between rival gangs. It had that much hate in it. The emotions and words were that primitive.
And this was within a yard of a guy who appeared to be one of his team's assistant coaches. I mean, I think he was a coach. if he were a teacher or an administrator, it would be even more disturbing ... because he let this guy rant like that forEVER. Or what seemed like forever.
Finally ... FINALLY ... after a good 20 seconds of the kid's murderous monologue, the adult turned to the foaming, expletive-spewing kid and said something like, "Hey, can you cool it off a little?"
Something like that. Something toothless.
The tenor of that milk-soppy rebuke was this: Sure, we all drop F bombs on the sideline to encourage our teammates and get ourselves fired up, but you've crossed the boundary here by doing it at paragraph length and, now that I think of it, we have visitors here, little brothers and stat keepers and reporters, and maybe, just maybe, they don't think the expletives -- especially laced with the insistence on "killing" an opponent -- is cool. And it might even reflect on me, that I let you carry on like that, so would you please slow it down, or at least lower your voice so that the fans on the other side of the field can't hear it? Thanks much.
It doesn't have to be like that ... kids out of control, spewing murderous venom with no consequences.
At Claremont, coach Mike Collins makes it clear ALL profanity is forbidden. You just don't do it. I've been on that sideline, and if it happens, it's under someone's breath.
At Miller, coach Jeff Steinberg has turned what used to be a rowdy sideline into one with minimal verbal violence. The Miller sideline is a THINKING sideline. Instead of pointless emotion wasted on shouts and street-thug threats, you can almost HEAR the thinking. About the next play. What to do next. How to solve this puzzle of a game. I loved it when Steinberg, clearly unhappy with a certain player, stopped that player as he came off the field and said, in a conversational tone, "Young man, do you intend to make a contribution tonight?" It was so perfect. And so out of the ordinary that it had tremendous moral and intellectual weight.
It can be done.
What I think happens?
One big chunk of coaches just doesn't get around to curbing verbal violence. It's what kids do, and I've got a zillion things on my plate, and making sure Little Joey isn't ranting is not a priority. This is the Blind Eye/Deaf Ear School. The kid I heard last night? His coach has become one of those guys.
Another unhealthy chunk of coaches are part of the problem. They use profanity regularly to communicate with their players. They think that's the way you reach kids. At the least, they allow their (often young) assistants to use it, clearly with their permission (if not their overt endorsement). And when you've got violent profanity, mixed with threats, coming from the authority figures ... well, sure, how can anyone expect kids to behave any better?
This isn't just about priggishness or some out-of-date moral code. It's about discipline and order.
I've been on NFL sidelines, and I can guarantee you the players there aren't screaming obscenities. They have too much to think about. They are under control. Even college football sidelines ... the verbal violence is far less than it is at any given high school game you might be at. Seems upside down, doesn't it?
Keeping your players from indulging in violent language should be part of the discipline that comes from being part of a team. The kid screaming about killing someone ... is out of control. And out-of-control players are a sure sign of a badly led, badly coached team. A team that is dangerously close to being more of a mob than an intelligent, thinking organism. And "mobs" are beaten by "teams" all the time.
I'm sick of it. It happens too often on too many sidelines, week after week. If coaches can get through to kids that jumping offsides isn't acceptable ... they can also get them to grasp that screaming about (deleted) killing someone isn't acceptable, either.