A quick anecdote on being a Maine "Student Athlete"

When winning and records are the priority what does that teach? Who does that encourage?

In 8th grade, I didn't make the basketball team, even though I had tried out for three years. Despite being tall and able to run fast, they never let me play. So, I became the "equipment manager" (embarrassing, I know, but I just wanted to be included). The coach was the school district's DARE officer and a well-liked policeman. He hated me. Maybe it was because I was a girl with a loud voice, maybe it was because my parents were loud Democrats in our very red county, maybe it was because I was funnier and cooler than him — I may never truly know. What I did know was that he didn’t want me on the team. He would often ignore me if I had questions and berate me if I didn't do something quickly enough.

One day, before practice — which I attended religiously but still wasn’t allowed to suit up for or participate in — he was shooting around while my peers changed in the locker room. It was just the two of us in the gym. I sat on the bleachers and watched as this middle-aged man dribbled and shot free throws. At one point, he went in for a lay-up and missed in a humorous way. I, being 13 years old at the time and alone in the gym with this man — the coach, the cop, the DARE officer — snickered audibly. His face reddened, and he grabbed the basketball and threw it as hard as he possibly could, three feet to the left of my head. It slapped the wall behind me with incredible force, and I was truly frightened. I went white as a ghost.

He then pointed at me as if to say something, but the girls from the locker room were beginning to trickle in. This man always entered my school in full police uniform. He never apologized or even looked me in the eye for the rest of the season. I still attended every game and every practice, hoping something would change. I never told my parents because I was afraid they would confront him, and he would retaliate. This man actively hated me and was in charge of me when I was a 13-year-old girl.

This is just one of my personal experiences with the Maine school sports system.

Unfortunately, my story isn’t unique. Too many kids face exclusion and mistreatment, especially in school sports. So please forgive me if I roll my eyes when we debate the sacredness of high school sports. Most kids are already excluded from it.

This is what I looked like when a beloved pubic school coach threw a basketball at my head as hard as he could because I laughed when he missed a basket.

Predators and violence come from those in charge, not from teammates. Speak to any handful of athletes — but not the star players — ask the equipment managers, the second-stringers, and those who never even got on the teams, and you will get stories just like mine — and many, many worse. The point shouldn't be scholarships and records, but rather play, sportsmanship, and teamwork.

Kids don’t make sports teams for many reasons. Sometimes it’s because of financial barriers like the cost of equipment, or because their families can’t commit to the long hours of practices and games. Sometimes it’s because coaches are assholes. School sports are not fair to begin with. Prioritizing winning, breaking records, and competing for scholarships leaves many kids out — and to what end? How many northern Maine Olympians have there been? In contrast, how many northern Maine kids could benefit from regular exercise and learning to work together?

Why are we not prioritizing teaching our kids ways and resources to report bad behavior from adults? Why are we not teaching kids that the poor kid gets to play this quarter because winning the game isn’t what’s important, supporting their teammates is? Why are we not giving them lessons in boundaries instead of giving them to unvetted and unsupervised adults? Why are we raging against other kids trying to play instead of looking at the long-standing, well-documented problems of abuse in school athletics?

My hope is that sharing this story helps some people think about the pressure we put on school athletes and the subsequent ripples it has on every other child in that school district.

School is the place for learning, not winning. Does your kid know that? Does our public debate reflect this? What do you think?