Intimidating Coaches Encouraged to Change Their Ways

June 10, 2014 /

From NewsObserver.com

Paul Dinkenor grew up in Manchester, England, as a fan of English professional soccer, a tough game with fans who were sometimes as rough and bawdy as the coaches and players.

Dinkenor, who has coached teams to five state titles at Raleigh’s Leesville Road High and has 700 career high school soccer wins, imitated his childhood idols when he began his coaching career in England. Dinkenor coached by screaming and yelling, emulating the coaches he grew up admiring.

“But then I had a very old coach call me aside and tell me that I was making a fool of myself and I didn’t know it,” Dinkenor said. “I had been raised on professional soccer and thought I was coaching the right way. But he helped me learn that doing all that talking and yelling does much more harm than good.”

National, state and local high school athletic officials are working to move other high school coaches along Dinkenor’s path.

High school coaches have had leeway in the past and were regarded as athletic drill sergeants who could cajole, intimidate and motivate students to work harder and perform better. Tough, loud and often intimidating behavior by coaches toward players has long been tolerated at all levels of sports, but high school athletic officials say it is time to end the culture of physical confrontation, verbal derision and profanity.

Tim Flannery of the National Federation of State High School Associations said changing the culture among high school coaches is a top priority. He said some coaches don’t understand that the standard of acceptable coaching behavior has changed. Many high school coaches, like Dinkenor early in his career, don’t realize they are doing something wrong.

“They’re ignorant,” Flannery said. “They put winning ahead of educational outcome, and as soon as they do that, there are going to be problems. They coach the way they were coached. That creates a culture. The culture is passed down from coach to coach. The hardest thing we can do is change the culture by educating coaches, but that is what we have to do.”

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