I grew up playing youth sports & then college in the “suck it up” era.
I’m not endorsing these tactics, but back then, it looked like: two-a-day football practices where your penalty for not going hard in drills, was not being allowed to get a water break w the rest of the team. In basketball practice it was doing wall sits as a team, as the coach fired passes at you to make sure your hands were up & ready, & not being used to brace yourself against the wall.
Interestingly, every yr, a bunch of the former players from my HS basketball team go back to practice the Friday after Thanksgiving, & the same coach is still there, & I wish we had a $ for every time one of us joked w Coach, facetiously: “Wow you’re being soft on them.”
It was a diff era. If you want to say coaches didn’t know as much back then, & the suck it up/work harder next time attitude was what worked, that’s fine. But what’s not fine, is coaches not adjusting to all we now know – abt how many of these tactics impact MH, & overall health. That HS bball coach I referenced, he smiles at us & grits thru his teeth: “Yeah there’s no way that stuff’s allowed any more.” Begrudgingly or not, he’s adjusted.
It makes this news story w NHL coach Mike Babcock that much more impt to highlight. Babcock’s been known in NHL circles, w Anaheim, Detroit, Toronto, as a guy who got close to, & often crossed the line. He was fired in Toronto amidst a # of allegations. The most public of which (slides➡️) was him asking a top player, privately, to rank guys on the team based on the effort they were giving. The coach then made those personal rankings public to the rest of the players. I’ve had friends who’ve played for Mike (who’s a “Bell Let’s Talk” ambassador) who’ve said he espouses the OPPOSITE of the campaign’s msgs.
Most recently he was given ANOTHER chance to coach, & was just fired for asking to go in players’ phones & project pics on a wall. Asking for permission or not, someone’s phone pics are private. That an old dog can’t learn the new tricks is concerning. These types of coaches need to be phased out if they can’t adjust. MH’s cumulative & lives are at stake.