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Post by hunhdisciple on Jun 26, 2018 20:14:51 GMT -6
I think this is an important topic, and I'll save my scenario for later, if needed.
But, how have people handled racism while coaching? If it's from fans, parents, players, other coaches, or opponents, how did you deal with it with your team?
How is this handled?
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Post by fantom on Jun 26, 2018 21:06:56 GMT -6
I'd like to answer but I don't really know what you're asking about.
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Post by hunhdisciple on Jun 26, 2018 21:11:51 GMT -6
I'd like to answer but I don't really know what you're asking about. If you've encountered racism in some capacity while coaching, how have you handled it?
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Post by carookie on Jun 26, 2018 21:12:55 GMT -6
I've seed it take many forms and been on various sides of it (opponent, parents, within the team). But as noted above its a hard question to answer as ambiguous as it was written; you gave five possible sources without any context of to whom the action was taking aimed at and to what extent.
In the end I think the specifics will better help other posters with giving answers.
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Post by hunhdisciple on Jun 26, 2018 21:31:40 GMT -6
I've seed it take many forms and been on various sides of it (opponent, parents, within the team). But as noted above its a hard question to answer as ambiguous as it was written; you gave five possible sources without any context of to whom the action was taking aimed at and to what extent. In the end I think the specifics will better help other posters with giving answers. I wanted it to be somewhat ambiguous. Because there are so many potential scenarios with it. Parents accuse a coach of being racist by playing or not playing a specific player. Players show racist actions either on and/or off the field towards a team mate. Opposing fans are racist. Opposing players are racist. A coach on your staff, or your HC, is casually racist. It's not a fun topic, but after I was talking with a friend about some of this stuff, I wanted to know how other people handle these issues. A few years ago, we dominated a team, and one of our players ended up getting a penalty for saying something to their fans who were apparently saying some pretty aggressive stuff towards him. HC refused to punish him, told him he understood what happened, but to be aware of the situation if it came up again. Some parents didn't like that he didn't get any sort of punishment, accused HC of favoring black kids. How do you handle that situation? I didn't have 1 specific issue or situation in mind with the post, but in what seems to be an incredibly volatile social environment, I think these are important things to consider.
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Post by fantom on Jun 26, 2018 21:42:42 GMT -6
The majority of our kids are African-American. That's true of most teams that we play. Sometimes. mostly in the playoffs but sometimes at one school in the district, it happens.
I've never had a problem with a coach. On the field, who knows? Fans? At worst we tune them off. At best, they like it. The other guys aren't supposed to like you.
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Post by 54695469 on Jun 26, 2018 22:16:41 GMT -6
Smh.... Just coach. Stop worrying about all this silly stuff.
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Post by 50slantstrong on Jun 26, 2018 23:51:48 GMT -6
Hate to sound cheesy but HS football is one place I’ve consistently gone to where nobody gives a F about race. That’s what I love about it.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 27, 2018 5:25:49 GMT -6
Im a white guy that coaches at a school that is 100% african american , the only thing close to racism ive ever seen were fans from another area during the playoffs.
I think the loss exacerbated it a bit as they were favorites, and more than a few of them seemed inebriated
But it didnt effect my kids in the slightest.
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Post by MICoach on Jun 27, 2018 6:41:47 GMT -6
I've never seen it in coaching from my own team or another.
When I was in high school I played for a predominantly white team in a pretty segregated league. I got called "White Boy" a lot on the field but that's about the extent of it.
From parents I would probably call them out on it.
I teach at a mixed black/Latino school but I coach at a predominantly white school, we have <10 minority players in the whole program. I'm pretty proactive about shutting down any sort of "black joke" or "because you're black" crap I hear, to the point of maybe being overly aggressive. Same thing goes for if I hear gay/{censored}/retarded. It's antiquated language and we give them a pretty long leash when it comes to cussing so just be more creative than that.
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Post by carookie on Jun 27, 2018 8:38:00 GMT -6
My first year coaching hs was at a school in a rough area with a lot of gangs, those gangs often times were divided on racial lines. I was coaching jv at the time but apparently that mentality crept up to the varsity team and the black athletes and Mexicans were darn near at each others throats. As a coach I imagine youd have to address something like that.
Outside of that most of what i have seen comes from players on other teams. Had one opponent whonwas in our league that EVERYONE knew about but his coaches refused to acjnowledge. He eventually said something to a non league opponent one year and it led to a fullmon riot (this was about 3 years back and was on youtuube for a while). It ended up leading to a double forfeit and both teams hadnto forfeit their next games-that team got the boot from the league too for not managing its players. Had another kid who was throwing around racist insults at a lot of our players, his hc found out-suspended him and made him write letters of apology. In most cases like this i let the refs know to keep an ear out for it then tell my players to ignore it and get over it. We have more important things to worry about than what the opponent says
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Post by 3rdandlong on Jun 27, 2018 12:14:00 GMT -6
I can give a specific.... What drives me crazy is the casual use of the n word ending in “a” by non black kids. But I also learned that the black kids don’t mind it. I’ve gone on long rants on why that word shouldn’t be uttered (IMO by black kids as well) but that doesn’t stop it. How do you guys handle that? Do you think it’s a big issue?
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Post by CS on Jun 27, 2018 12:36:03 GMT -6
I can give a specific.... What drives me crazy is the casual use of the n word ending in “a” by non black kids. But I also learned that the black kids don’t mind it. I’ve gone on long rants on why that word shouldn’t be uttered (IMO by black kids as well) but that doesn’t stop it. How do you guys handle that? Do you think it’s a big issue? I used too but it’s part of their culture now. If it caused problems then yeah I would say something but the kids don’t see it that way
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Post by newcoryell on Jun 27, 2018 12:53:21 GMT -6
N Word: As a black man, I place myself at the forefront of attempting to get kids to stop using that word. It shows a lack of intelligence and denies the proper respect that all people deserve. An insult is never to be uttered with such complacency. I don't go off of the modern takes from many in sociological departments. Don't say it. Learn not to say it. However, I don't want it to become some word that gives others "power" over you. Ignore them and look at them the same way you would look at a fool eating a bowl full of crap.
Racism in the stands: The same. Showed a group of kids once the video from Gladiator with them entering the stadium. Those people aren't on the field and the more that you ignore them the more that you are getting in there head. It's hard. I'm not saying that we should be saints...but show them how much better a person you are by taking the negative and turning it into positivity.
Racism in the coaching profession: I don't want this to turn into a flame war...but I've seen "bias" from parents. Primarily from black parents. I've seen it cut both ways: White coach can't understand black children. White coaches are just better at X and O's. It just stupid.
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Post by newt21 on Jun 29, 2018 15:35:37 GMT -6
We played a team when I was in HS that was fairly racist, comments made during games, shady stuff at bottom of piles, etc. we just focused on kicking their butts on the scoreboard (which we did). We have a team in conference that's the same way, I address it during the days leading up to the game, letting our kids know it's going to happen, letting them know they will NOT react to it, and that I would remind the refs to keep their ears open due to issues in the past. IMO by letting them know ahead of time, it helps to minimize negative actions on our end. I also tell them about my experience in school.
As for players on our own team, I had a kid make a racist comment once and I lost my cool on him. Didn't cuss or threaten or anything like that, but I legitimately yelled at him and let him know if it happened again he wouldn't be playing for me anymore. Up to my knowledge it didn't happen again.
Had a kid this past year that continuously played the "because I'm black" card, and most of the time it was in a joking manner, but I pulled him aside and talked to him about why he shouldn't be making comments like that and the perception it gives people. Never coached with anybody that's made racist jokes or comments, I'm glad I haven't and hopefully I won't.
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Post by macdiiddy on Jun 29, 2018 20:16:08 GMT -6
Itcomes up nearly every year. We are a fairly balanced whte to mexican to black ratio on our team. Half of the teams we play are rural where the other have are inter city. We get it from both ends. Either kids on our own team giving each other hell with overt and not so overt racist comments.
Those get squashed immediately. No matter how playful.
At least once a year we Face a team where the N word starts flying like crazy. We use it as a teaching moment, and try to get our players to not sink down to their level. One year an opposing coach heard from his players that the n-word was flying on the field. And he drove the kid that he picked out as the biggest offender up to our school. A 30 minute drive and made him apologize.
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Post by vanden48 on Jun 30, 2018 4:33:54 GMT -6
Had a Coach I worked for get hauled off the field because parents and some players accused him of saying racist things. He was placed on administrative leave, replaced as a HC, and got moved out of his teaching position for a year as it was investigated. Police were involved. Police concluded that the claims were false. School did not rehire him as the HC. He sued the district over defamation of character. This can be a serious issue and is thrown around sometimes like it means nothing. This was a State Coach of the Year.
With players I always correct them, white or black about using racial slurs. Had a player tell me a Mexican joke once. I was laughing with him as I told him my wife was Mexican and makes more money than he ever will, unless he too becomes a dentist. Then I asked him how much he would like to run.
Most of the time you need to keep in mind that these are kids and social issues provide key teaching moments for us as coaches.
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Post by IronmanFootball on Jun 30, 2018 7:33:37 GMT -6
I've heard racist and homophobic things in the coaches office, on the field/court, to my face about me, heard it during games, had a team yell "WHITE BOYS!" at my program (we were extremely diverse, we also kicked that team's ass), and seen parents mad we took donations from the tribe.
It's all around in FL, NC, and OR. In rural, suburban and urban areas. Low, middle and high SES. At public, private and charter schools.
It's a great teaching moment for players to learn how to overcome it but it doesn't mean it's ok or we should "Stop worrying about all this silly stuff" because that's a bullchit answer to a question STILL plaguing our society.
And when I hear the racist crap in the coaches office or how they're against having a gay player around- I try to get a new job ASAP.
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Post by fshamrock on Jun 30, 2018 14:28:04 GMT -6
In my area there are a few tropes around that I feel are race based that get pretty old and I'm looking forward to them fading
some examples - whenever a team is mostly African American, some old coach drops the "boys if we just hit them in the mouth they'll start bitching at each other and shut down"
also, for some reason, in the great state of Texas, if your team is primarily white and you win a lot you get a lot more credit for being a "great coach" than if your team was mostly black and had those "athletes"
the most recent state championships featured an extremely wealthy mostly white school against a mostly black school, white school (for lack of a better term in this example) won it at the last second in a fantastic game
I can't tell you how many white twitter warrior coaches went on the twitter praising the white school for showing so much "grit and determination" and how "brotherhood and culture" can overcome anything, even "all those great athletes" the other school had on their team
now i don't think these guys mean to be racist, they are just expressing their thoughts, but from where I'm sitting the team with all those white kids looked pretty freaking athletic to me, they were freaking huge....and it seems insulting to call them not athletic because they are white, and it seems really insulting to insinuate that the black kids team didn't have a strong "culture" or "brotherhood" or what the hell ever based on no information at all other than the fact that they are mostly black.
for all anybody knows, the team with the black kids have 3 brotherhood dinners a week, 17 Acronyms for the program, and they finish every practice with trust falls and cry circles, and the white team all hate each other, everybody immediately just assumes the other way....like I said, it gets old
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Post by nhsehs on Jun 30, 2018 16:02:12 GMT -6
In my area there are a few tropes around that I feel are race based that get pretty old and I'm looking forward to them fading some examples - whenever a team is mostly African American, some old coach drops the "boys if we just hit them in the mouth they'll start bitching at each other and shut down" also, for some reason, in the great state of Texas, if your team is primarily white and you win a lot you get a lot more credit for being a "great coach" than if your team was mostly black and had those "athletes" the most recent state championships featured an extremely wealthy mostly white school against a mostly black school, white school (for lack of a better term in this example) won it at the last second in a fantastic game I can't tell you how many white twitter warrior coaches went on the twitter praising the white school for showing so much "grit and determination" and how "brotherhood and culture" can overcome anything, even "all those great athletes" the other school had on their team now i don't think these guys mean to be racist, they are just expressing their thoughts, but from where I'm sitting the team with all those white kids looked pretty freaking athletic to me, they were freaking huge....and it seems insulting to call them not athletic because they are white, and it seems really insulting to insinuate that the black kids team didn't have a strong "culture" or "brotherhood" or what the hell ever based on no information at all other than the fact that they are mostly black. for all anybody knows, the team with the black kids have 3 brotherhood dinners a week, 17 Acronyms for the program, and they finish every practice with trust falls and cry circles, and the white team all hate each other, everybody immediately just assumes the other way....like I said, it gets old I’m with you. The ironic thing is that the school is only 1/3 black, has a huge FCA program, and has an overall fantastic culture. And although it is nothing like the other school, it is predominantly middle class and the school has awesome facilities/community support. The new HC will continue that. What will be interesting is if they will be considered more “coached up” when they lose kids to the new school. All the naive generalizations come from people who don’t have any actual knowledge of situations.
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Post by fkaboneyard on Jun 30, 2018 18:15:51 GMT -6
I'll probably take it in the shorts for this but the sooner people stop making it a big deal the sooner it will stop being a big deal.
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Post by bobgoodman on Jun 30, 2018 19:07:43 GMT -6
I think this is an important topic, and I'll save my scenario for later, if needed. But, how have people handled racism while coaching? It is important but intractable. The type of racism that consists of people insulting other people is fairly trivial and should be handled the same way any other incivility is handled. The important type of racism is something that really can't be handled. It's attitudes that are formed over many years and that affect thinking subtly. Attempts to "handle" that problem are counter-productive. I think I got a pretty good taste of it when I started coaching children, in 2007. I'm white and the great majority of the players and other coaches were black. I got a good deal more att'n & respect from the few white players. Nothing nasty or uncivil -- any more than children are all nasty & uncivil -- just a matter of Might've been coincidence, might've been my misperception, but if it was race-related, there's nothing I could do about it.
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Post by coachd5085 on Jun 30, 2018 22:25:18 GMT -6
I'll probably take it in the shorts for this but the sooner people stop making it a big deal the sooner it will stop being a big deal. I used to think like this before I started teaching/working at a Majority/minority school. Now my opinion has changed, because I think one of the biggest issues is that lots of times I don't think the people involved recognize what they are doing (unintentionally). The little things like some of the things mentioned in this thread "the gutty tough performance vs the great athletes" thing for example.
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Post by 3rdandlong on Jun 30, 2018 23:26:41 GMT -6
Common racist comments coaches say about opponents of specific races:
White team: “They’re not very fast but They’re well coached and disciplined. They don’t make many mistakes. But Those spoiled kids don’t like getting hit.
Black team: They have athletes. We’ll have to contain them. But they’re undisciplined and will point fingers and quit when bad things happen.
Mexican team: They’ll hit you and their tough. But we should be able to find mismatches and beat them with our speed and size.
Asian team. They’re very smart but Asians don’t play football and aren’t athletic.
Polynesian team: Ummm. Okay I must admit that I don’t hear very many negative things about Polynesians.
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Post by fkaboneyard on Jun 30, 2018 23:59:55 GMT -6
I'll probably take it in the shorts for this but the sooner people stop making it a big deal the sooner it will stop being a big deal. I used to think like this before I started teaching/working at a Majority/minority school. Now my opinion has changed, because I think one of the biggest issues is that lots of times I don't think the people involved recognize what they are doing (unintentionally). The little things like some of the things mentioned in this thread "the gutty tough performance vs the great athletes" thing for example. As long as you allow words to set you off they will have power over you. I'm white, my wife is Mexican, sons are beige, my daughter is Chinese and we're working on adopting a child from Haiti. We have fostered kids of different races over the past few years. When we're out to dinner we look like the United Nations. The ignorant, racist comments we get are astounding. It used to drive my wife & I nuts. We burned a heck of a lot of calories being mad about it. Once we let it go and got over it we were much happier. Now we laugh at their ignorance or ignore them. And I'm sorry, but if people take offense to unintentional slights like the "gutty tough performance" then they are morons. It's easy to be a victim, it's much tougher to acknowledge ignorance and rise above it. That's my $.02.
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Post by fshamrock on Jul 1, 2018 7:51:14 GMT -6
I used to think like this before I started teaching/working at a Majority/minority school. Now my opinion has changed, because I think one of the biggest issues is that lots of times I don't think the people involved recognize what they are doing (unintentionally). The little things like some of the things mentioned in this thread "the gutty tough performance vs the great athletes" thing for example. As long as you allow words to set you off they will have power over you. I'm white, my wife is Mexican, sons are beige, my daughter is Chinese and we're working on adopting a child from Haiti. We have fostered kids of different races over the past few years. When we're out to dinner we look like the United Nations. The ignorant, racist comments we get are astounding. It used to drive my wife & I nuts. We burned a heck of a lot of calories being mad about it. Once we let it go and got over it we were much happier. Now we laugh at their ignorance or ignore them. And I'm sorry, but if people take offense to unintentional slights like the "gutty tough performance" then they are morons. It's easy to be a victim, it's much tougher to acknowledge ignorance and rise above it. That's my $.02. I hear you, I really do but the last line of your post you said "acknowledge ignorance and rise above it". I think it's important that we shed light on some of these things when we can so that people might be put in a position to acknowledge their own ignorance and maybe be more mindful of their own biases. I'm not a big spike lee fan, but I remember reading something from him about how white people love movies like rocky and hoosiers because they follow the same formula, scrappy white people with a great attitude overcome brash loudmouth black people who are physically superior I remember being like holy crap I freaking LOVE rocky and hoosiers...am I racist? I don't think so...but it's probably important that me and others ask ourselves that question from time to time
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Post by fantom on Jul 1, 2018 8:29:33 GMT -6
As long as you allow words to set you off they will have power over you. I'm white, my wife is Mexican, sons are beige, my daughter is Chinese and we're working on adopting a child from Haiti. We have fostered kids of different races over the past few years. When we're out to dinner we look like the United Nations. The ignorant, racist comments we get are astounding. It used to drive my wife & I nuts. We burned a heck of a lot of calories being mad about it. Once we let it go and got over it we were much happier. Now we laugh at their ignorance or ignore them. And I'm sorry, but if people take offense to unintentional slights like the "gutty tough performance" then they are morons. It's easy to be a victim, it's much tougher to acknowledge ignorance and rise above it. That's my $.02. I hear you, I really do but the last line of your post you said "acknowledge ignorance and rise above it". I think it's important that we shed light on some of these things when we can so that people might be put in a position to acknowledge their own ignorance and maybe be more mindful of their own biases. I'm not a big spike lee fan, but I remember reading something from him about how white people love movies like rocky and hoosiers because they follow the same formula, scrappy white people with a great attitude overcome brash loudmouth black people who are physically superior I remember being like holy crap I freaking LOVE rocky and hoosiers...am I racist? I don't think so...but it's probably important that me and others ask ourselves that question from time to time I've heard that stuff. I've heard that their "scrappy, hard working kids" would beat our's. I resented it because I knew how hard our kids worked. I still like "Hoosiers", though. Upon further review, ,most of "Rocky" is kind of boring.
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Post by carookie on Jul 1, 2018 8:42:24 GMT -6
I hear you, I really do but the last line of your post you said "acknowledge ignorance and rise above it". I think it's important that we shed light on some of these things when we can so that people might be put in a position to acknowledge their own ignorance and maybe be more mindful of their own biases. I'm not a big spike lee fan, but I remember reading something from him about how white people love movies like rocky and hoosiers because they follow the same formula, scrappy white people with a great attitude overcome brash loudmouth black people who are physically superior I remember being like holy crap I freaking LOVE rocky and hoosiers...am I racist? I don't think so...but it's probably important that me and others ask ourselves that question from time to time I've heard that stuff. I've heard that their "scrappy, hard working kids" would beat our's. I resented it because I knew how hard our kids worked. I still like "Hoosiers", though. Upon further review, ,most of "Rocky" is kind of boring. I know (as I have read in this post) I am not supposed to let words offend me, but dang....."Rocky" is a tremendous movie. Its just not really a sports movie, its a movie about a bunch of flawed people who lean on each other to grow as people- and yes I know what a pretentious jackass that comes off as, and no I'm not a fan of art films. That being written, Rocky is amazing.
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Post by fshamrock on Jul 1, 2018 9:11:17 GMT -6
Rocky IV rocky III Rocky Rocky Balboa Creed Rocky II
Rocky V
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Post by mattman2 on Jul 1, 2018 9:32:06 GMT -6
Not racism, but I know certain teams get treated differently by officials. When we are the home team, refs are strict about back plates, arm bands and all the look at me stuff that is illegal and you’ll get flagged for pointing up to the student section or celebrating to much.
When you play a city school, at their place, all those rules go out the window. Teams spike the ball in the end zone and taunt. Nothing gets done.
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