To better understand the diverse, changing and even conflicting opportunities and responsibilities of coaching, it may be helpful to identify five distinct models of the objective of sports. Although some ideas in these models overlap, each model is premised on a different conception of the objectives and purpose of athletic competition and the role of a coach. Consequently, each model also reflects different priorities and values.

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This loss still haunts me more than forty-five years later. In my head, I know it was only a rookie error in a ten-year-old game. The coach, my dad, just couldn’t see it that way.The look and verbal lashing he delivered after my miscue was scathing. There would be no popsicles or soft drinks on this night. I ran to the car, buried myself in the backseat and cried for nearly a half hour.He didn’t say a word on the ride home but my mom and I sensed his anger and hoped it wouldn’t erupt further. My dad was prone to verbal rage from which even the neighbors recoiled. This would be my first experience with depression as I remained secluded for nearly three days. I felt worthless. I prayed that I would not wake up the next morning. There was no appetite and no desire to see or speak to anyone. My head was in a fog and my heart felt like it was crushed. Looking back, I realize this was a terrible burden.

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Many coaches and parents are totally oblivious to the real beauty of their children’s participation in youth sports. They are like the thief scrounging on the floor for rags when the incomparable beauty of the moon is theirs for the taking, if they would just elevate their gaze.

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Forget about juiced sluggers, crooked referees and quarterbacked fighting dogs – what disturbed me most in SportsWorld this year came out of high school where I found too many male athletes profoundly distrustful of adults, especially their coaches. And they had good reasons.

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