Playing hurt: Coaching requirements spotty

Lawsuits spur training;

A team of lanky 13-year-olds trails Coach Mike Del Valle into a hallway outside a Canisius College gymnasium.

“You played hard. You never quit. You can be proud,” Del Valle assures the Niagara Rapids girls. Their defeat — to the powerhouse Blessed Sacrament Yellow Jackets of Hamilton, Ontario — came in the opening round of an Amateur Athletic Union super-regional basketball tournament in Buffalo, N.Y.

It is the first weekend in May and Del Valle is spending his 64th birthday like so many before — coaching young athletes. He tells his players to stretch, as he draws upon training and experience that tell him conditioning after a game prevents sprains and joint problems in growing muscles.

Del Valle, who works for a bank in Buffalo, has carried clipboards for football, softball, baseball and basketball teams for 40 years. He has volunteered for most of those jobs. He has more training than most of his peers.

While AAU has no specific training requirements for coaches, Del Valle also is head coach of the North High School Lady Spartans in Williamsville, N.Y. As a scholastic coach in New York, he must prove he has completed a coaching philosophy and principles class, a sports health class and a techniques class for his particular sport, girls basketball. He must be certified in first aid and cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Since he is not a teacher, he must take a class in child abuse recognition.

New York’s rules for scholastic coaches are among the most rigorous in the United States, a CNHI News Service survey found. But most states are at the other end of the spectrum. A police background check in some states is the only requirement to coach.

Doctors and advocates say training coaches is key to preventing injuries among young athletes. More athletic organizations are now recognizing that as they reexamine their programs and implement rules to emphasize safety.

Jim Flannery, director of the National Federation of State High School Associations, says injury prevention isn’t the only motivation.

“We believe we are losing sight of the purpose and mission of high school sports,” Flannery said. “Schools are for education. Coaches enhance educational outcomes using their sports.”

Del Valle, who has attended dozens of workshops in addition to those required by the state, says he finds the greatest benefit in the people seated next to him.

“I have attended coaches' clinics over the years to pick the brains of other coaches,” he said. “Everything I do in coaching, I stole from someone else.”

Spotty requirements

Legal concerns and lack of experience among coaches usually are what lead schools or youth groups to create training rules. But while many states require some form of training for school coaches, programs usually touch only on helping athletes avoid injury, the CNHI News Service study showed.

Half the states require teachers to take courses in basic first aid or sports first aid before becoming coaches, and 34 require first aid classes for coaches not trained as teachers.

Coaches usually meet these requirements by taking online courses from the American Sport Education Program or the National Federation of High School Associations. The first aid programs address injury prevention but focus mainly on how to handle medical emergencies.

Seven states — Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, North Dakota, Pennsylvania and Virginia — have no training requirements at all, the survey found. Another 12 states require no additional training for teachers who become coaches.

Only three states — Iowa, Wyoming and Connecticut — require specific training in sports injury prevention.

The world outside interscholastic sports is even less regulated. Some national youth sports groups do not require training for coaches. Even if they did, local leagues are not always affiliated with national groups.

New coaches prompt training

Schools began adopting training rules when they started looking for coaches outside the teaching staff, says Roch King, who coordinates the graduate coaching program at Ball State University in Muncie, Ind.

“In the past, all coaches used to be physical education teachers,” King said. “As the number of teams grew and the physical education faculty diminished, other teachers stepped in.”

Now, King says, the majority of scholastic coaches are hired with no formal teaching education or experience.

“It has become an apprenticeship model,” he said, “where coaches have played or worked for other coaches.”

School administrators in more than half the states said they enroll coaches in classes that teach the principles of responsible coaching and first aid.

The American Sport Education Program is behind many of these classes, said spokesman Jerry Reeder. The program, which has been teaching coaches for 25 years, developed courses. It also helped the National Federation of High School Associations design its own courses in coaching fundamentals and first aid, which are now required in 28 states, with another 12 states saying they plan to adopt the classes.

“The thing we try to impress on our coaches is the physical safety of an athlete has to come first,” Reeder said. “The next thing is the mental and emotional safety of an athlete.”

States or youth groups that adopt the courses also want to avoid what King calls the “hassle factor” of parental complaints, and potential lawsuits, about how their children are trained and treated.

Litigation and the threat of it have expanded coach education everywhere, said Gregg Heinzmann, director of the Youth Sports Research Council at Rutgers University. More than 20 years ago, New Jersey adopted the country’s first law giving coaches limited immunity from civil lawsuits filed by parents.

The law was passed in the wake of a lawsuit filed by parents of Joey Fort, a Little League player struck in the face by a baseball during warm-ups before an all-star game.

The boy’s parents claimed his four coaches were negligent in moving the 10-year-old from second base to the outfield without teaching him to shield his eyes from the sun to catch fly balls. A league official told the New York Times the injury was “an act of God.”

The case was settled, and terms were not made public.

But, said Heinzmann, it chilled interest in coaching.

“When the news hit, people started saying, ‘I’m not going to risk my livelihood to go out there and coach,’” he said.

Three other states — Louisiana, New Hampshire and North Dakota — have since enacted similar laws.

An array of standards

In states that do not encourage or require training, athletic association officials are quick to note that local schools or districts can set their own requirements.

But Jeff Dietze, who runs a training program for the Virginia High School League, which has no specific requirement for coaches, admits few local districts take that step.

“We are getting more, although it’s really slow,” he said.

Dietze uses a theatrical flourish to make his point about the value of training coaches when he begins each new class. Asking for two volunteers, he sits one in a chair and hands the other a pair of shears.

“He’s going to give you a haircut,” he tells the seated volunteer. “Is that all right?”

After some nervous looks and discussion, Dietze takes away the scissors.

“I tell them it takes months to get (cosmetology) certification, and the hair grows back,” he said. “We are putting coaches out … who don’t have training. That is the importance of this program.”

Virginia is the only state with its own accredited coaches’ training program. Efforts to make it mandatory have failed due to resistance from rural, and sometimes poorer, schools in the western part of the state.

At the other end of the spectrum are New York, Connecticut, Iowa and Montana — states where coaches must complete hours of training for certification.

New York’s requirements reflect a commitment to education, said Lloyd Mott, assistant director of the state’s Public High School Athletic Association.

“We do not put non-certified teachers in a classroom,” Mott said. “If participation in interscholastic athletics is an educational process, the coaches need to have basic lessons in the philosophy and principles of interscholastic athletics, sports-related first aid, health, conditioning and nutrition.”

In Connecticut, non-teacher coaches must complete three semester hours of college classes in youth sports psychology, coaching principles and medical, safety and legal issues.

Iowa coaches must complete college courses in sports physiology, child development, injury prevention and medical and safety issues. New coaches are required to take a semester in coaching theory, which includes ethics and legal issues.

Montana has an extensive online course, developed by Craig Stewart of Montana State University.

Web-based classes are the only feasible approach for a vast, sparsely populated state, Stewart said. But they cover an array of topics including safety, physical development, training and conditioning, injury prevention, social and psychological aspects of sports, sport-specific skills, teaching and administration, coaching female athletes, professional development and state association rules.

“Good training makes sure we have the best people possible working with kids,” Stewart said. “Online training provides support for the good coaches working in the field.”

Stepping out of the stands

Youth sports coaches, by comparison, are not regulated in any consistent way.

Some national groups — including Little League, US Youth Soccer and AAU — have no specific regulations. Nor does Pop Warner football, though next year the group will start requiring coaches to attend one-day clinics that involve some lessons on health and safety.

In the AAU, national and regional groups sanction tournaments in more than 30 sports for member clubs like the Niagara Rapids. Each club has its own bylaws and may require training. However, most do not, according to veteran coach Mike Del Valle.

“You can be a parent and step right off the stands and be a coach,” he said.

That’s exactly how Harlan “Howie” Mostiller and Rodney Johnson became coaches of their daughters’ Buffalo Defenders basketball team. Although Johnson is an emergency medical technician, neither is trained in coaching principles or preventing injury.

Both say they got into coaching because their daughters love the sport.

Amani Mostiller lives every day like it is the height of basketball season. The 13-year-old plays and practices year round with the Defenders, and she was there when they took the floor at Canisius College this past spring.

Along with the dedication comes pain. Amani broke her ankle a year ago, when she got in the way of a larger player driving for the basket. Three months later, she strained a knee while she was driving to the hoop.

“Howie” Mostiller, her father and coach, said some injuries are a price paid for playing hard.

“I have arthritis,” he said. “I played in my day. Sports is hard on the body. You are running all the time.”

The Defenders have an outside trainer who helps with conditioning for injury prevention. Not all clubs have that luxury.

The Niagara Rapids are among the fortunate. They have Coach Del Valle.

Players and parents say they trust him, his training and experience. Steve Smith of Lockport, N.Y., said his 13-year-old daughter, Ashley, does basic running, leg stretches and strength building exercises at home — all based on Del Valle’s advice.

“As a parent,” said Smith, “you are always concerned about injuries.”

That’s why, sports experts say, it is important for coaches at all levels to know how to prevent injuries and, when they occur, how to properly treat them.

CNHI News Service Elite Reporting Fellowship recipient Randy Griffith is a reporter at the Johnstown, Pa., Tribune-Democrat. He may be reached at rgriffith@tribdem.com.

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