Youth Sports: Violence, Mission, and Hope by Dr.

Dobie Moser May 16 2013 Part-time soccer referee Ricardo Portillo died one week after a 17 year old soccer player made a fatally flawed decision and punched him in the face during a game in a suburban soccer league game in Taylorsville, Utah. I am still trying to wrap my mind around that 3 daughters left behind he had a passion and love for soccer and had officiated for years his oldest daughter Johana (26), said that she and her sisters had pleaded with their father to stop refereeing because of risks from angry players and parents. This warning from his daughters would seem to say there was a culture of abuse toward officials that was being tolerated in that sports community. And this makes sense and is acceptable because Too often, violence in sports is not only acceptable but is routinely tolerated as a sign that coaches, parents, and players care about their team and the game. Winning is valued as more important than anything else, in spite of threadbare slogans that the game is about whats best for the kids and sports builds character. More often sports reveal character, and too often what is revealed is ugly. We have come to see that when boorish behavior - violence, cheating, abuse, sexual imposition or attacks, treating athletes as commodities, happens at the professional and collegiate levels, it is acceptable as long as the team or athlete is winning. The acceptance or cover up of the behaviors of Tiger Woods, Kobe Bryant, and the New Orleans Saints Bountygate scandal, where players were ostensibly paid to hurt opposition players, are classic examples in the professional arena that begins to trickle down to what later becomes acceptable in collegiate, high school, and youth sports programs. Nikes ad when Tiger Woods returned to the #1 spot said it boldly: Winning takes care of everything. The winning first vision is unequivocal: commercial success trumps character building or more to the point, commercial success is character building, and the program ends justifies the means, making money for the university, the team owners, or the leagues. Or this scenario makes no sense, it is unacceptable, and it MUST STOP NOW! There are competing visions battling to become The dominant culture in youth sports. One vision is sports as work and business: To play a sport is to climb onto a ladder where each rung leads to greater benefits for fewer persons with the perks, but also demands increasing productivity every step up. The sports as ladder to success vision requires significant financial investment, travel leagues, national tournaments, private coaches, luck from injuries, families who place sports at the center, winning individual and team records, adults setting increasingly demanding goals for children and driving them to achieve those goals, year round single sport participation, and a 1:13,000 chance that any high school senior who excels in a sport will ever receive a dime for playing that sport (NCAA Research). The primary questions driving this vision: What is best for the best of the best (my child and a few select athletes) and how can that be

achieved for that individual above all else? What does success look like via the sports as work and business vision? But a second vision that contributes to the overall formation of young people is sports as play that contributes to the overall formation of young people. This vision includes: the benefit of exercise and skill development for short term and long term benefits the use of sports as a way to learn life lessons and have fun with teammates and friends the understanding and acceptance that young people have many interests worthy of their time and attention the athletes developing the skills to reflect and name their own goals and develop strategies to pursue their individual goals within a team context giving athletes the time and space to reflect and assign their own meaning to their sports experience, a meaning that may be different from their parents and coaches. The primary questions driving this vision: What would make your sports experience most beneficial for the overall formation of every athlete and for their teammates? What does success look like via sports as play that contributes to the transformation of young people into healthy adult citizens? In Catholic youth sports settings we are required to ask different questions. How does our Catholic School sports program or CYO program animate and highlight the best of our Catholic mission and values? How does our Catholic school sports program or CYO program violate and diminish our mission and values? These questions recognize that our schools and CYO programs have taken the time to articulate our mission statement and values. Our CYO mission statement in the Diocese of Cleveland CYO program is this: CYO endeavors to help young people be more Christlike in the way they live. Our stated values are: Dignity of Person, Concern for the poor, Justice, Hope, and Stewardship. We are constantly struggling with the challenge of how to best integrate our mission and values into all aspects of our CYO program so that our student athletes will grow as disciples of Jesus Christ. It is delusional to think that the harmful parts of youth sports culture cannot or have not already entered into our Catholic sports culture. Only when we evaluate sports programs in Catholic settings through the lens of mission, can we take strategic steps that are both preventive and responsive to build a sports culture that reflects and animates our Gospel mission and values. In my work with CYO programs as well as Jesuit, Marist, and diocesan schools, we have used the following questions to inform our efforts to build a mission based sports program in a Catholic setting.

Do we do coaches formation, training, and supervision to help coaches reflect on and own our Catholic mission while developing practical strategies to implement our mission at all practices and games? Do we engage studentathletes, parents, coaches, and administration in an active and strategic partnership to determine how to bring our mission to life in our athletic program? Do we evaluate all athletic decisions through the lens of Catholic mission: the hiring and retention of coaches; the role of parents and booster organizations; the training and formation of student athletes faith development; the handling of conflicts within the program and in dealing with opponents sports programs? Do we highlight and celebrate experiences in sports where our student athletes have placed our Catholic mission and values above competing priorities? Do we intentionally consider how in game decisions and actions reflect or violate our Catholic mission and values i.e. playing time decisions, running up the score, cheating, fan behavior, handling injury risks, etc. Do we give time and attention to student athletes serving others together, retreating together, and praying together regarding their sports experience? Do we reject common yet misguided worst practices in youth sports where athletes are humiliated, violence is celebrated, and winning at all costs is pursued with a singular focus? For sports in Catholic settings to focus first and foremost on our mission and values does not preclude high athletic achievement or competing at high levels. A mission focused Catholic sports program is a wonderful opportunity to demonstrate the courage of our convictions by saying that how athletic achievements occur has everything to do with the value of their achievement. When our Catholic sports programs effectively integrate our mission and values we can serve as a hopeful alternative to the sports as work and business model that is fraught with problematic issues. Ricardo Portillos Mass of Christian burial took place at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church in Magna, Utah on May 8, 2013. May he rest in peace. May his legacy help all persons involved in youth sports to stop, reflect, and take ongoing and determined actions to make sports safe and life giving for all children, parents, coaches, and officials. May his love for the young people he cared for and the game that was his passion compel youth sports leaders to reject all forms of sports violence and allow young people to discover and celebrate the play in sports. Dr. Dobie Moser has served on the U.S. Olympic Committee and has trained thousands of coaches, parents, and school athletic leaders. He served as the Board Chair for National CYO Sports and was a Co-Director of the University of Notre Dames Play Like a Champion Today national coaches training program. Dobie is currently the Director of Youth & Young Adult Ministry & CYO Athletics for the Diocese of Cleveland.