Embezzle, fo’ shizzle

In Frederick, Md., the sheriff’s department is investigating possible embezzlement at the local Youth Sports Association. Its interest was piqued after the group’s treasurer suddenly resigned, then her husband — a local football coach — suddenly resigned, and the association decided maybe it was time for an audit.

The sheriff (above), on the case.

At this point, I’m not sure embezzlement at a youth sports organization counts as news. Not when it happens so often. A quick Google search turns up a case pending in Ault, Colo., and a federal indictment in Seminole County, Fla. Youth sports embezzlement is so common, your league can buy insurance to protect against any losses.

Youth sports organizations are an easy target for theft because they tend to have one person handling a lot of cash transactions that are audited and accounted for by no one outside that single volunteer. Just like how a person who really wants to coach kids, but has none of his or her own, is now thought of a potential child molester, anyone desiring the job as league treasurer might need to be thought of as a potential thief first.

Then again, even a thief can get in, given the lack of volunteers for the long and tedious job of counting the money. That the Allendale (Mich.) Little League was swindled out of $16,000 should not have come as surprise, because the treasurer was OK’d even though a criminal background check showed one embezzlement conviction and one pending case. “This is an all-volunteer group,” the Grand Rapids Press quoted the current league president as saying. “You take what you can get.”

Unfortunately, “you take what you can get” is also the attitude of a lot of league treasurers. This article from Athletic Business details a lot of the usual advice for leagues — rotate league treasurers often, see if you can get an accountant pro bono to look at the books, etc. Sadly for Allendale, it left out the part about not hiring a guy with an embezzlement conviction.

The last game

Tomorrow is the last game for my fifth- and sixth-grade coed basketball team. It’s both a high and a low. The high is seeing the on-court equivalent of a final exam, watching players do things they weren’t capable of only a few months, watching kids who barely knew each other two months ago addressing each other as teammates, equals, and friends. The low is, well, that it’s over.

To be played at the final game.

I hope as a coach I’ve taught them to appreciate, respect and cherish a sport I love. And that I’ve taught them how to be good and supportive teammates. I guess the final exam tomorrow should tell me whether I’ve been successful. All I know is, I’ll always have fond memories of coaching this group of kids.

Forgive us our 100 trespasses

Update on The Blowout of Blowouts:

The Covenant School in Dallas has posted a statement on its Web site feeling contrition for its 100-0 girls basketball pasting of Dallas Academy.

The Covenant School, its board and administrators, regrets the incident of January 13 and the outcome of the game with the Dallas Academy Varsity Girls Basketball team. It is shameful and an embarrassment that this happened. This clearly does not reflect a Christ-like and honorable approach to competition. We humbly apologize for our actions and seek the forgiveness of Dallas Academy, TAPPS and our community. The school and its representatives in no way support or condone the running up of a score against any team in any sport for any reason. The school’s board members, Head of School Kyle Queal and Athletic Director Brice Helton have acted to ensure that such an unfortunate incident can never happen again.

Covenant school officials have met with and personally apologized to Dallas Academy Headmaster Jim Richardson and Athletic Director Jeremy Civello and wish to extend their highest praise to each member of the Dallas Academy Varsity Girls Basketball team for their strength, composure and fortitude in a game in which they clearly emerged the winner. Accordingly, The Covenant School has contacted TAPPS and is submitting a formal request to forfeit the game recognizing that a victory without honor is a great loss.

Kyle Queal
Head of School

Todd Doshier
Board Chair

Catholic Church Supply should say the Act of Contrition for charging $24 for 100 of these cards.

If indeed the Internet scuttlebutt was correct and coach Micah Grimes kept playing a press defense for most of the game, then Covenant should be apologizing. Blowouts happen, but when it’s 59-0 at halftime it’s not stretching to say you can call off the dogs. (Also to clarify: Dallas Academy specializes in kids with learning disabilities, but it’s for the likes of ADD and dyslexia. It’s not a Special Olympics team.)

But if Covenant was so ashamed at Grimes’ alleged conduct, it should have apologized the day after the game — not nine days later, after the blowout attracted national publicity. . Given Covenant had won many other games of the 77-27 variety, perhaps the school could have said something to Grimes previously about avoiding any rub-it-in-your-face conduct before playing a team that hadn’t won a game in four years. And offering a forfeit? That’s just patronizing.

As usual in this story, the classiest person involved is Dallas Academy athletic director and girls basketball coach Jeremy Civello. From today’s Dallas Morning News:

… Civello said his school accepted the “heartfelt” apology delivered by Covenant’s head of school, Kyle Queal, and athletic director Brice Helton.

Civello said the girls’ team, which hasn’t won a game in his four years there, doesn’t want to be credited with a victory it didn’t earn on the court.

“Covenant has a great team,” Civello said. “We wish them all the best for the rest of the season. We don’t think what happened is a reflection on those girls in any way.

“There are a lot of good people at that school. We hope this blows over.”

Win or lose, if your kids get one coach like Jeremy Civello in their lives, consider yourself fortunate.

It depends what the meaning of “reckless” is

A Louisville, Ky., grand jury indicts a high school football coach on reckless homicide charges related to the heat stroke death of a 15-year-old during practice. While a report compiled for the American Football Coaches Association finds 114 football-field heat stroke deaths from 1960 to 2007, apparently Pleasure Ridge Park coach David Stinson is the first to face criminal charges for one. First the story, and then the question of what it means for anyone coaching youth sports:

From the Associated Press:

A high school football coach should have realized a player could collapse from heat stroke in the broiling weather during practice, a prosecutor said in announcing reckless homicide charges in a youth’s death.

A grand jury indicted David Jason Stinson on Thursday in the death of Max Gilpin, 15, a sophomore offensive lineman at Louisville’s Pleasure Ridge Park High School. It was Stinson’s first year as head coach when the player collapsed and had trouble breathing.

Heat exposure deaths happen occasionally in football from the sandlot to the pros, the most famous example being Minnesota Vikings offensive lineman Korey Stringer in 2001. Lawsuits have been filed in many of those cases, but no evidence can be found that a coach has ever been charged in the deaths.

The heat index, used to measure how hot it feels based on temperature and humidity, reached 94 degrees during the Aug. 20 practice. Gilpin’s temperature reached 107 degrees at the hospital, authorities said. He died three days later.

No autopsy was performed, but the coroner’s office said it appeared Gilpin died of complications from heat stroke.

The reckless homicide charge means grand jurors didn’t find that Stinson’s actions intentional or malicious, said Jefferson County Commonwealth’s Attorney Dave Stengel, but that “a reasonable man should have realized something like this could have occurred.”

Stinson’s attorney, Alex Dathorne, told The Associated Press that the coach maintains his innocence and looks forward to “bringing out the whole story.”

I’m no legal scholar, but I highly doubt David Stinson will get convicted. Among the reasons is, if what his attorney says is true, the grand jury indicted only on the word of one police detective.

The Kentucky High School Athletic Association has stated guidelines for handling extreme heat. At a 94-degree heat index, the standards are: “Provide ample amounts of water. This means that water should always be
available and athletes should be able to take in as much water as they desire. Optional water breaks every 30 minutes for 10 minutes in duration. Ice-down towels for cooling. Watch/monitor athletes carefully for necessary action.”

You can argue if the standards for a heat index of 95 degrees of fewer are sufficient, but if the coaches followed them, that would seem to speak against being “reckless. (I say coaches because Gilpin’s divorced parents have filed suit against Stinson and five assistants, the latter of whom were not indicted.) Another question that is going to come up, and I hope Max Gilpin’s parents are ready for, is whether the player was on any medications or supplements that would have made him more susceptible to heat stroke. Notably, ephedra has been fingered as a culprit in some cases. Or, had Gilpin had a physical from his family doctor and been cleared to play — or hadn’t been cleared? Did he have an enlarged heart? I’ll note again that no autopsy was performed.

I don’t bring this up to sully the name of an innocent teen, but someone is going to ask why Gilpin and no one else suffered from heat stroke that day. (According to the Louisville Courier-Journal, a second player had to be hospitalized for two days after collapsing.)

Of course, if Stinson didn’t follow those basic standards, and if he was being an extreme hard-ass about the heat, then he indeed might be in for some serious trouble. (And I’ve heard a few rumblings the coaches were chiding players for taking water breaks, but nothing is confirmed. On the link above, you can certainly get all sorts of gossip from the reader comments.)

So what are we youth coaches supposed to take from this? Should we be afraid of being sued or indicted if a player is severely injured, or dies?

The biggest problem for most youth coaches is that we get exactly zero training on injury prevention and procedures. At the lower levels, it’s hard sometimes to find enough warm bodies to coach, much less take the time (and the budget) to make them sit through medical training. Or have paramedics at the ready at every practice and game. Statistically speaking, 114 football-related heat stroke deaths, which tragic in every case, over 47 years on all levels is miniscule.

I’m not saying I wouldn’t like some guidelines on what to do if, say, one of my players hits his head on the court and blacks out. (Though I already know what I wouldn’t do, what my teen-aged cousin’s hockey coach did after he came off the ice puking and unaware of his surroundings — send him back on the ice a few minutes later. I think, I hope, we all know what a concussion is now, and that it’s more serious than we once thought.) Both the coach and the player don’t want to sit out, and often the player is the one heavily begging to stay out there.

The best I can do right now is try to read my players to see how they’re feeling. I have one player on my basketball team who has arch troubles, and I make sure to ask him frequently how his feet are feeling, and watch how he plays to look for evidence his feet are bothering him. Unfortunately, sometimes you never know something is wrong until tragedy strikes. I was playing in a basketball league (we’re talking adults here) where a 41-year-old lawyer died on the court from a massive heart attack. He looked OK until the moment he dropped.

We’ve come a long way since Bear Bryant’s Junction Boys being denied water in the Texas desert, and I hope for everyone’s sake that Stinson wasn’t skimping on the water breaks or making Gilpin run extra drills or something.

If anything, more education of coaches, athletes and parents on the risk of injury and signs of severe problems will be a greater help to prevent more Max Gilpins than indicting coaches will.

UPDATE, 2:55 p.m., 1-23-09: Upon further review (and hearing more sources chat about the coaches’ alleged conduct), if indeed the coaches were denying water to players, then they deserve everything they get thrown at them. I know you want to develop tougher players, but if you’re denying water breaks in the equivalent of 94-degree heat, that IS reckless. During my basketball practices, I insist my players take water breaks, and if they tell me they don’t need water, I make them drink some anyway. If a coach is allowing water breaks and otherwise monitoring his or her players, then to me a player collapsing is not a sign of reckless disregard as a result of the coach.