Editorials

The first right of parents under the Parent's Concussion Bill of Rights is to the right to expect that their child's athletic program will hold a concussion education and safety meeting for parents and athletes before every season. This is because the best way to ensure that athletes who suffer concussions playing sports have the best possible outcome in both the short and long term is to educate them and their parents about the importance of self-reporting and the parent's role in the critical return to play decision.

The stresses of sports competition can overwhelm the coping skills of parents increasingly led by our winner-take-all society to believe that a child who fails at sports will fail as an adult. Given an environment in which survival virtually requires parents to become overly focused on and invested in their children's success in sports it is no wonder so many act out in inappropriate ways.

Each day between 70 and 100 e-mails are sent, redirected or forwarded to me. I try to read, file, redirect or forward each one by the end of the day. The majority of these are directly related to producing our New Media site. Many are press releases, from non-profit organizations to pharmaceutical companies, asking us to plug "the first-over the counter dye-free liquid pain reliever, to publishers with a new book release, and so on.

On Monday, December 17th, USA Hockey National Women's Team coach Ben Smith will have to tell 2 women that, after twenty-one games, after months of living out of a suitcase with 25 of their teammates, they won't be going to Salt Lake City in February to play for their country in the Olympics.

The founder of the modern Olympic games, Baron Pierre de Coubertin, first stated the Olympic creed in 1896, and it is as much a cherished ideal today as it was more than a century ago: "The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part."

My sons were just five when they played on their first youth sports team. I can still vividly recall that night in April when the head coach called to tell me that they were on the T-ball "Red Sox" and that the first practice would be held at the high school softball field in two days.

Raising sports active kids is difficult, perhaps never more so than today. Parents feel pressure to help their kids succeed and to keep up with other parents in an increasingly winner-take-all society. Too often, parents feel that if they don't do everything for their child, they are bad parents. Some parents seem to take pride in how busy and stressed are their lives and those of their kids, as if it is a measure of how successful they are and how successful they must be as parents.

It seems that every season a story comes to my attention about a high school track & field athlete being disqualified from a meet for a seemingly minor rules violation. The most recent case to garner attention was that of Juashaunna Kelly, the best distance runner in Washington, D.C., who was disqualified last month because the body suit she races in to comply with the requirements of her Muslim religion did not comply with the rules of the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) regarding uniform color.

From all that one might think from reading the newspaper, listening to the news or watching the television talk shows lately, the only problem with youth sports today is the out-of-control parent, and that all we have to do is to stick a code of conduct or laundry list of rules under the nose of every parent and ask them to sign on the dotted line, and everything will be fine.