It is my belief that parents have a right to expect, when they entrust their children to a sports program - whether it be Pee Wee hockey, youth lacrosse, Olympic development soccer, or high school football - that it will take reasonable precautions to protect them against harm. In other words, parents have a right to expect that the entire team to whom they entrust their children's safety - including the national governing body for the child's sport, the state association, the athletic or club director, the athletic trainer (if there is one), and especially the coaches - are part of the concussion solution, not part of the problem.

That they will witness their child suffering a serious injury playing sports is a parent's worst nightmare. Like the vast majority of parents, the possibility of injury was always in the back of my mind when I watched my children play sports.

But because the signs and symptoms of concussions are not obvious as a broken leg or a sprained ankle and are often very subtle, because most don't involve a loss of consciousness, and because self-reporting by athletes is critical to the detection and treatment of concussions, the only way parents can sit in the stands without worrying sick about what might happen if their son or daughter suffers a concussion is if they know the program, and especially the coach, takes concussions very seriously and that every member of the team is using the same playbook.

My dad has been gone for close to twenty years now, yet this Father's Day week he is closer to my heart than he has been in many years.

If he were still alive, II am sure we would have been sharing in the excitement of the Stanley Cup playoffs over the past few weeks, culminating in the Bruins' victory over the Vancouver Canucks last night in Game 7. 

It was an excitement we shared 39 years ago when the Bruins last won the Cup.  Since he was born in 1925, he was alive for all of the other Cup victories by the B's in 1929, 1939, 1941, 1970 and 1972.

Cow bells

The Boston Bruins were the first professional team to which my dad introduced me. I recall fondly, as a four year old, sitting on his lap, barely being able to ring the cow bells that he and my mother took to home games back when I was a young kid then. For many years, he had season tickets to the Bruins games at the old Boston Garden, and he made sure that his girls grew up to be fans.

In fact, when asked how I wanted to celebrate my birthdays in mid-February, I always chose to attend the Bruins games with a few of my friends. My dad was happy to oblige, and always managed to get us some of the best seats in the house.

A three-sport captain (football, hockey and baseball) and standout athlete at the Riverdale School in the Bronx, New York and at Reading (MA) High, my dad was ready to sign a minor league contract with the Chicago White Sox when he graduated in 1944, but elected to serve his country instead; joining the Navy and serving on the aircraft carrier Bon Homme Richard in the war in the Pacific. While baseball was his best sport (he played both pitcher and catcher, and had a no-hitter for Riverdale), he was also a hockey goalie and a talented linebacker on his football team.

I often wondered if he missed not having a son to pass his love of sports on to. He claims that he never did and that he loved teaching and playing sports with his daughters. If it wasn't throwing a football or a baseball in the backyard along with all the neighbor kids, it was pond hockey, skiing, swimming, golf, paddle tennis, tennis, water skiing or horseback riding. He wanted us to be strong with a solid foundation of exercise and sports, and what better place than in the outdoors.  

Dads play special role

So, as the nation celebrates Father's Day, I will be thinking of Dad and how much he would have enjoyed the Bruins' victory in the Stanley Cup.

Thanks, Dad, for all that you did for me. 

To address the discrimination in athletics that girls still face in high schools across the country the National Women's Law Center has launched the "Rally for Girls' Sports: She'll Win More Than a Game" campaign. As part of the campaign, I was invited to participate and to write a blog about the advantages of athletics participation and how it has affected me in my life by answering the question, "What did you win by playing sports?"

As those who have read my articles and blogs on MomsTeam.com, heard me speak around the country, on radio or television, or read my op eds or book, Home Team Advantage, know, I have often used personal stories from my past in my work advocating for safer, saner, less stressful and more inclusive youth sports.

But of all the of my memories of my years as a young athlete, lessons learned, friendships made, severe injuries overcome, and physical stamina and endurance gained, the one I remember most vividly was about the time I was kicked off of my freshman field hockey team for attending a Halloween dance the night before the last game of the season. I didn't know it at the time, but, looking back, it was the most important lesson I ever learned through sports; one I have carried through my life: that sometimes when you think you have lost, you have actually won.

There were few opportunities for an athletic teenage girl growing up in the 1960's to play team sports in the days before the enactment of Title IX. So, when I finally got to high school and could follow in my older sister's footsteps and tryout for the junior varsity field hockey team, I was over the moon.

The summer before I started ninth grade, I practiced dribbling a hockey ball for hours every day so I would not only make the team but be able to play well in the games. There were no camps, clinics, private instructors or elementary school programs to prepare me for field hockey tryouts in the little New England seaside town where I grew up. I was on my own, but determined to be a productive member of a high school team.

I made the team along with twenty or so other freshman girls. Each of us was thrilled to have been given the opportunity to play on our high school team, which, year after year, won the state championships. Our coach, Miss Brooks, was a drill sergeant and did not seem to care much for any of us. She was also the coach of the varsity girls team and, understandably, spent the bulk of her time coaching and training them. She left most of the coaching of our team to her, assistant, Miss Hibbett, whose job it was to prepare us to be varsity players.

Coach Brooks was a no-nonsense coach. She rarely smiled and had very strict rules that she distributed to us on mimeograph paper and drilled into our heads with constant verbal reminders. No gum chewing, no detentions, no cigarette smoking etc.

We had a good season and were looking forward to joining the varsity the next fall. There was an abundance of talent on the team. We expected to not only make the varsity but be its next stars. At the same time, we were very careful to follow Coach Brook's rules, scared to death of the consequences that would befall us if we dared to defy her authority. Naturally, we all looked up to the varsity players, especially the starters. After all, our field hockey program was the pride of the school.

The week before Halloween, which fell on a Monday my freshman year, we were informed about a new rule: No player would be permitted to attend the Halloween school dance because there was a game on Tuesday. We were crestfallen. It was our first year of high school and our first school dance, and the Halloween dance was all we had talked about for weeks.

Where did Coach Brooks' edict come from? It was not on our rule sheet! Certainly, we all agreed, it wasn't a fair rule, and, if we all went to the dance together, she wouldn't enforce it, would she? And besides, how would she ever know if we attended? And if she did find out, we figured, we would be let off with a stern reprimand. She wouldn't kick us off of the team. Or so we thought.

So we went. Eighteen of us; along with a couple of sophomore girls from the junior varsity. We were having the time of our lives when my then-best friend, Lisa, ran up to me and said, "Oh, my god! Coach Brooks is here!" "Run for the bathroom," she said. The word travelled quickly, but some of the players never got off the dance floor before Coach Brooks bellowed their names (right in front of the seniors and all the boys!): "Holly, you are off the team. Kaki, you are off the team. Wendy, off the team, Heidi, off the team, Lucy, you are off the team!"

And then she made her way to the girl's bathroom. By that time Lisa had come up with the idea to hide under all the coats that were piled up on the floor outside the stalls. I was safely hidden, or so I thought, in one of the bathroom stalls, along with three other girls.

Suddenly, Coach Brooks burst through the stall door and began rattling off our names followed with "YOU ARE OFF THE TEAM."

On her way out she spotted Lisa under the coats. "Lisa, you forgot to cover your feet. YOU ARE OFF THE TEAM!"

We were all ordered to the Principal's office and told to call our parents to come pick us up. Then, through our tears, we realized that there were two players missing. The "twins" were not in the room. Where were the twins? Had there mother already come to pick them up?

Back home, crying and devastated, the phone lines were jammed with angry parents, confused team mates and three baffling questions: Why couldn't we go to a school dance, how does coach have the right to deny us the right to participate in a school function and where were the twins? None of us had been able to reach them on the phone.

The next day, we walked around school with our heads down and eyes red from crying. Life was not fair, we let our team down, and it would soon become a whole lot less fair when we realized that the Twins had not been caught and apparently were the only girls at the dance who had avoided the wrath of Coach Brooks. Our mothers were quick to suggest that it was probably because their mother was the president of the boosters club and a close friend with Coach Brooks.

The following season only three of the freshman girls (now sophomores) showed up for field hockey tryouts. Most of my friends were forever turned off from sports by the politics, saying "we won't play for a coach who is not fair, who knew the twins were at the dance yet never kicked them off the team." During the tryouts, two of the girls dropped off, claiming it was too much work and could not be around the coach and the twins who refused to kick themselves off the team the previous fall after the Halloween Massacre.

I was the lone sophomore left from the group of rebels to continue playing. I had a true desire to excel and loved the sport. Coach Brooks never spoke to me during my sophomore year and only once during my junior year when she said, "Congratulations, you have made varsity." I continued to excel and knew that I was playing for myself and my teammates and not for my coach, who continued to demonstrate poor sportsmanship and act improperly. In my senior year, I became team captain; we had an undefeated season and we went on to become win the Massachusetts State Championship. Life was good.

I learned a lot of lessons from Coach Brooks, almost all of them lessons about what not to do as a coach, which I put to good use (or non-use, as the case may be) during the years that I coached. I learned how not to play favorites. I learned how not to let politics get in the way of fairness. I learned how to win through persistence and hard work and never-say-die attitude.

They were lessons that I have carried throughout my life and have used as a springboard to become a leading youth sports expert, activist, author and founder of MomsTeam.com to educate and empower parents to become the very best advocates for their young athletes, to fight the politics and favoritism, and to keep them from being physically, sexually and emotionally abused.

Because of all the tough sports lessons I have encountered along the way, I have become a winner in many ways, whether running my corporation, writing or parenting my sons, I know which shoals to avoid and which to teach others about, and I know that politics is a very destructive part of life but from those early experiences I have become a stronger and more productive individual and  parent. I win every time young sports parents from around the country take the time to thank me for making their lives better and for providing solutions to real life problems.

The new movie, Win-Win, should appeal to all age groups, but, may be especially appealing as a movie for grandparents to see with their sports-active teenage grand-kids.

The movie deals with a number of real life intergenerational issues that many families wrestle with (pun intended) - a grandfather with signs of dementia who wants to stay in his own home, a mother fighting drug addiction while trying to stay connected to her teenage son, even a young athlete facing and overcoming performance anxiety - in a way that is, at times, immensely entertaining and at others, heartbreakingly depressing. In some ways, it reminded me of The Blind Side. Like the football player in that movie, Kyle is a gifted athlete with a drug addicted, couldn't-give-a-damn mother and a deceased father, who begins to flourish when he is taken in by a caring family.

Interestingly, many in the audience the night I saw the movie were older and probably related more to "Lou" the grandfather, played by Burt Young, than to "Mike" the financially struggling forty-something lawyer and high school wrestling coach (Paul Giamatti) who volunteers to be Lou's guardian after Lou is deemed incapable of taking care of himself as he slips toward dementia, or to Kyle, Lou's sixteen-year-old wrestling grandson, who Mike takes in when he comes to visit Lou.

Some of the scenes in the movies weren't quite believable to me, so I wouldn't say Win-Win was an outstanding film, but, as a sports-themed movie I found it satisfying. The scenes were knit together quite well by a talented cast of actors who sometimes had to save the movie from being too contrived. My favorite character was "Terry" a high school wrestling teammate and Mike's best friend, who, when he realizes how talented a wrestler Kyle is, jumps on the bandwagon and becomes an assistant coach for a wrestling team, that without Kyle, had been on a long losing streak (shades of the "Bad News Bears").

Adding authenticity to the movie is the fact that Kyle is played by Alex Shaffer who, in real life, won the New Jersey state wrestling championship in 2010 when he was seventeen.

The best thing about the movie is the life lessons it teaches for all athletes. My favorite involved one of Kyle's teammates, Stemler, played with goofy charm by David W. Thompson. Inspired by Kyle's gung-ho, never-give-up attitude in the wrestling circle, Stemler finally musters the courage to overcome his fears to wrestle the pivotal match for his team. From years of watching and coaching boys' sports teams, I know that, like Stemler, some boys are fine with riding the bench as long as they can be part of a team yet never feel they are making a contribution. Stemler's story is one that both coaches and athletes will find inspiring.

I highly recommend Win-Win as a movie for the whole family to enjoy together.

When my sons were eleven their youth baseball team had reached the championship game. There were two outs in the bottom of the sixth.  Our team was down by a run, but the bases were loaded.  Taylor, the first born of my triplet sons, was at the plate. It was a pressure-packed situation, but Taylor was the team’s leader in runs batted in and had come through in the clutch all season long. A walk would tie the game. A hit might bring in two runs and win the game.

Ball one.  Ball two. Ball three!  One ball away from a bases-on-balls which would knot the game. Taylor swung and missed at the next two pitches.  Full count.

The pitch was delivered. Seeing that it was low and clearly out of the strike zone, Taylor stood motionless in the batter’s box, confident that it was ball four.  The ball bounced a foot in front of home plate and skidded into the catcher’s glove. Ball four! Tie game! 

Or so we thought.

But wait, the umpire’s right arm came up. “Streeeike three!” he called.  Game over! The Mets were the champs.  They ran onto the field for the traditional pig pile celebration.

Some of the parents from our team began yelling at the umpire. “Who paid you off, ump?” one screamed. “You lousy piece of `##!»,” shouted another.

But Taylor wasn’t angry or cursing the ump as he walked away from home plate. Instead of tears or anger, he was smiling from ear to ear.  I will never forget what he said: “At least we made it to the finals! Nobody thought we would! We came in second in the league!”

It was one of my proudest moments as a sport parent.  Taylor knew that the umpire had made a bad call; a terrible, unexplainable mistake.  Yet he rose above it and found the good in the most important game of the year.  The shouting from the angry parents came to a sudden stop. It took a child playing a kids game to show parents that winning is not at the top of a kids’ sports priority list.

Nearly seven in ten 9- to 15-year olds in one recent survey reported having seen a fan angrily yell at an official.  Three quarters of parents and coaches have witnessed such unacceptable and verbally abusive behavior as well. 

Such behavior can negatively effect all the players. We have all seen umpires make bad calls.  We have all felt anger on the sidelines. Character is taught to our children at home and reinforced on the playing fields. How we handle that anger and defeat is what defines our character too.

With my three sons now having graduated college and their careers in organized team sports over, looking back is bittersweet.  The best of times were always when my children were having fun with their friends and teammates, playing sports for the pure joy of it. I have some wonderful memories of home runs hit, games won, goals scored, and sharing these experiences with my friends.

Unfortunately, some of my memories have not been so sweet: the politics, the favoritism, the hidden expenses, the injuries, out of control parents, abusive coaches, bad officiating and finding family time.

What I will remember for the rest of my life won’t be how many games they won or lost, but the fun they had, the times they displayed great sportsmanship and character.  My proudest moments as a sports mother came when my children handled tough calls with grace and dignity, not with cheap insults directed at referees or “trash talk” aimed at opposing players.

When Taylor did the right thing by walking to the bench with his head held high instead of arguing with the umpire, I told him how proud I was for the way he displayed “grace under fire.”

What was your proudest moment as a sports parent? E-mail me at delench@momsteam.com