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A rash of fights--among both players and fans--have recently made headlines across the country.
Portsmouth school officials disappointed, embarrassed by hockey playoff
brawl
An all-out brawl at a New
Hampshire high school boys' ice hockey playoff game involving
players and fans has school officials upset and an investigation is
underway. Both schools are expected to be punished.
BASKETBRAWL: High School League Puts Both Schools On Warning>
Late last month, two
South Carolina high school boys' basketball teams were put on
warning and individual players at both schools were suspended after a
brawl broke out at a playoff game.
...But No Charges - Southside, Abbeville students won't face charges in post-game brawl
Seasons End Early
A harsher punishment for two boys' hoops teams that participated in a
fight among themselves and several fans at a playoff contest got them
both kicked
out of the tournament.
Women, Too
The sportsmanship issue isn't just relegated to boys' teams at the high
school level, either. Inside
Higher Ed recently took a look at several incidents that
occurred this school year involving female college athletes.
by John Mariani
Syracuse Post-Standard
February 11, 2010
Camillus, NY -- The Camillus Youth Basketball Association, whose games were suspended after a brawl Monday, will resume play on Feb. 22, league President Tim Schoonmaker said.
"CYBA officials, after communicating with the Camillus police and the West Genesee Central School District have decided to resume league play effective Feb. 22, 2010," Schoonmaker said this afternoon. "All commissioners, coaches, parents and players will be contacted of this. We thank the school district for allowing us to use their facilities."
League officials will meet with West Genesee Superintendent Chris Brown next week to discuss what security arrangements might be made to allow play to resume, Schoonmaker said. A game schedule also should be drawn up next week, he said.
by Staff
Around the Rings
February 8, 2010
The first edition of the Africa Youth Games host contract between the Association of National Olympic Committees of Africa (ANOCA) and the Local Organising committee represented by the Morrocco National Olympic Committee and the Ministry of Sports was singed on Wednesday 3 February at Atlas Hotel in casablanca, Morrocco.
The games are targeting young Africans athletes (boys and girls) aged between 15 and 17 years. The Games will be held from May 9th to 15th 2010 in Rabat.
14 sports desciplines will be on the programme: Athletics, Basketball (3 vs 3), Boxing, Fencing, Football, Gymnastics, Judo, Rowing, Swimming, Table Tennis; Taekwondo, Tennis and Wrestling. Exceptionnally, 2 sports: Swimming and Gymnastics will be hosted in Casablanca.
C.W. Post News
February 2, 2010
BROOKVILLE, N.Y - C.W Post in co-sponsorship with C.W Post Student - Activities, the East Coast Conference, and Long Island Women's Institute is proudly celebrating the 24th Annual National Girls & Women in Sports Day on Tuesday Feb. 2 in the Hillwood Commons Lecture Hall from 6-7 PM.
Special guest speakers will include Assistant Commissioner of the Northeast Conference Joyce Bell, Associate Director of Athletics at Columbia University Jacqueline Blackett, Director of Athletics at St. Francis College Irma Garcia, Director of Women's Basketball Ops at Rutgers University Michelle Edwards, along with Lisa White Head Athletic Trainer for The New York Liberty.
by Tina Szybisty
Ann Arbor Health News - Examiner.com
February 2, 2010
ACL stands for Anterior Cruciate Ligament and it links the femur (large bone in upper leg) to the tibia (bones in lower leg) by running crosswise inside the center of the knee joint. The ACL is one of four ligaments that help stabilize knee movement.
As recently reported on WXYZ news, these types of injuries are on the rise in youth girls (as much as eight times more than males). They tend to be caused by pivoting movements and landing from a jump.
According to the CDC (Centers for Disease Control), "nearly 30,000 girls age 19 and younger suffered ACL injuries that required surgical repair in 2006." It's felt that girls are not equipped for the vigorous training that is often expected of them at this age because their bodies are building fat while boys are building muscle. This is due to the nature of their hormones; testosterone vs. estrogen. Girls bodies are building fat stores around the crucial, growing reproductive organs and her ligaments become more relaxed and therefore, more susceptible to injury.
It's also felt that a girl's wider pelvic structure causes a steeper angle on the connecting ligaments in this area.
News 10 Now - Central New York
January 31, 2010
ONONDAGA COUNTY, N.Y. -- Jamesville-DeWitt has one of the best basketball programs in the state, but Sunday, the school's athletes took their hoops skills to the hardwood for a good cause.
JD held a Hoops for Haiti fundraiser, to bring in money for the Red Cross's efforts overseas. Students and staff teamed up to organize the event and say they were impressed with how many people turned out.
"I wasn't expecting a lot of people but we got a great turnout. A lot of support. I'm very happy our school is putting on this event it's a very good cause and I think the people of Haiti needed our support," said Gabriel Williams, junior.
by Michael Smith
Sports Business Journal
January 25, 2010
The joint youth basketball initiative between the NCAA and the NBA, iHoops.com, is creating a new defensive skills challenge that will be sponsored by Right Guard. The deodorant is already a founding partner on iHoops.com and the defensive skills challenge, geared for youth players.
OLATHE, Kan. - He shoots, he scores. Sort of. Olathe Northwest girls basketball coach and science teacher, Joel Branstrom, was slated to be the center of a school joke, until he did the impossible and stunned the entire student body.
In an attempt to spoof College Humor's Prank Wars Half Court Million Dollar Shot, the school told Branstrom if he made a half-court shot while blindfolded, he would win NCAA tickets. However, the school never had NCAA tickets to give him, as they never expected him to make the shot. Not only did he make it, he sunk it. Nothing but net, baby.
BY KEVIN LITTEN
October 9, 2009
REPUBLICAN-AMERICAN
TORRINGTON -- The Parks and Recreation Commission has approved a new stipend schedule that helps fund youth sports, but the money is now subject to City Council approval after the commission moved to cut all stipends earlier this year.
Parks and Recreation Commission Chairwoman Patricia Fairchild said the commission met to review the stipend schedule with youth sports leagues representatives to rework the schedule based on need, and the sports leagues presented the commission with financial data at that meeting.
The stipends help reduce the costs the volunteer-run sports leagues charge city children to play in after-school and summer baseball, soccer, football and basketball leagues. The leagues have no direct affiliation with the city, but many use city-maintained fields and facilities.
The Cougars of Middle School 61 had a basketball game in the Bronx, but a half-hour before tipoff, six girls and Coach Bryan Mariner were still inching through traffic in Brooklyn.
A cellphone rang. It belonged to forward Tiffany Fields-Binning, who passed the phone to Mr. Mariner.
"You don't want her to go?" he said. He peered up at a street sign. "We're on Atlantic and Flatbush." He paused. "O.K. O.K. We'll wait here."
Mr. Mariner turned off the ignition. "Tiff-a-ny." He said her name slowly, like a sigh. "You didn't set this straight with your pop?"
Tiffany stared out a window.
Mr. Mariner turned and assessed the situation: "We've got five."
Five players. No substitutes.
by Sue Shellenbarger
Wall Street Journal
May 19, 2009
We've posted before on injuries in youth sports. As summer teams start up, you'll be hearing more about one kind of injury in particular: Knee damage in girls.
Two professional groups, one of surgeons and the other of athletic trainers, are fielding an educational campaign on the prevalence of knee injuries among girls. Tears to the ACL, or the anterior cruciate ligament in the knee, are eight times more likely in girls than in boys, research shows. Doctors hypothesize that physiological differences between girls and boys, such as weaker hamstring muscles that reduce the stability of the knee joint, or estrogen that leads to weaker ligaments, are factors.
The educational campaign comes amid rising questions about the pressures on young athletes. Mark Hyman, author of a book on the topic, says he regrets having supported his son in pitching so long and hard in high-school baseball that he injured his arm, forcing surgery and a permanent setback. And recent research on 5,000 promising football players shows high-school and college injuries haunt pro players for years.
COVINGTON -- Keith Hennig has a 3-year-old boy named Trevor and a 1-year-old named Brady. He wants to watch them grow up. Not in the brief moments between school and basketball practice. Not in the late-night hours when he would get home from a game or an open gym.
"I hate it during the winter season because I leave when it's dark out, and when I come home it's dark out," Hennig says. "It's almost depressing."
Long before he led the Kentwood High girls basketball team to the state championship in March, Hennig, only 32, had decided that it would be his last season. But Hennig discovered that, as with any addiction, it's one thing to decide to quit. It's quite another to go through with it.
For two weeks after the championship game, he walked past the state championship trophy every day and saw his girls in the halls at Kentwood, where he is a history teacher. He remembered all those moments that made the late nights and early mornings worth it. He was going through withdrawal.
Tom Wyrwich
May 12, 2009
The Seattle Times
Bret Hayworth
Sioux City Journal
May 17, 2009
On opening night of the Westside Little League T-ball season Wednesday, the four Kirk Hansen Park fields in Sioux City were full of young athletes.
The Sara Lee team of 12 girls and boys ran onto one of the fields. A boy dug in dirt behind third base, a teammate stood on first base with his cap on backward.
In the dugout, one of the Cardinals' male coaches asked, "Does everyone know where you go when you hit the ball?" Yes, a boy answered, first base.
Sam, wearing No. 3, approached the plate and, on his first swing at the ball on the tee, delivered a grounder to a girl standing between the pitching mound and shortstop. Sam beat out her throw, which was on target but merely trickled to first base.
As the kids softball and baseball seasons begin, some children are taking part in youth sports for the first time. They're getting started in an era in which kindergarten boys compete in wrestling tournaments with the chance to win ribbons or medals, a time when youth basketball leagues run from November to March, consuming months of kids' and parents' lives.
ESPN RISE and Disney's Wide World of Sports have developed a new weeklong, multi-sport event called the "ESPN RISE Games". The ESPN RISE Games, which will feature elite and competitive channel sports events, will be presented by Target. The ESPN RISE Games Presented by Target will take place July 19-25, 2009 at Disney's Wide World of Sports Complex, the nation's leading multi-sport venue for amateur and professional sports, in suburban Orlando, Fla.
The ESPN RISE Games Presented by Target will be anchored by three elite high school sports events: the AAU 17-under Boys Basketball Super Showcase presented by Champion®, the Under Armour High School Softball All-American game and ESPN RISE's newly developed, elite high school football event Champion® Gridiron Kings. Additional sponsors for the event will include POWERADE, the events exclusive beverage provider.
The weeklong event will also feature competitive channel youth sports - baseball (10U, 11U and 12U), basketball (12U and 14U), field hockey (U14, U16 and U19) and track & field (12-14 and 15-18). The ESPN RISE Games Presented by Target is expected to host 4,000 student athletes.
May - 13 - 2009
The Tournament Guide
Tonight is the smackdown between the Denver Nuggets and the Dallas Mavericks. It's hold-your-breath tense as fans await the competition. It's also National Etiquette Week (apparently Mark Cuban didn't get the memo). What can parents of teens garner from the hubbub surrounding comments made between the two teams? Plenty.
Roughly 75% of all boys and girls in the United States play organized sports, according to a study commissioned by the Women's Sports Foundation. It's a big part of a lot of kids' lives. Many parents like organized sports as an extracurricular activity because of lessons learned that kids can use in all areas of life.
The study, titled "Go Out and Play: Youth Sports in America," documented increased family wellness due to children's participation in sports and exercise. When children are young and just starting out on a team, it's a black and white world: play by the rules; respect your opponent; share your snack; and be a good loser. These basics continue to apply as young athletes age. All the way to the pros.
Sheryl Butterfield
May 13 2009
examiner.com
For one Texas high school basketball coach even when you win, you lose.
Micah Grimes, who made national headlines when his team beat up an undermanned opponent 100-0, was fired on Sunday.
The firing of the girls varsity basketball coach comes after the Covenant School issued an official apology on its Web site following the Jan. 13 blowout of fellow Dallas-area private school, Dallas Academy.
Grimes, who was in his fourth season at the school, disagreed with the school's apology and said his team played with "honor."
"I respectfully disagree with the apology, especially the notion that the Covenant School girls basketball team should feel 'embarrassed' or 'ashamed,'" Grimes wrote in an e-mail posted on a youth basketball Web site on Sunday and published in The Dallas Morning News.
Youth league - A melee ensues when the Molalla coach confronts the referee who ejected him from the girls basketball game
By Brent Walth
February 18th, 2008
A basketball game between the Estacada Fury and Molalla Wildcats started like any other match between fifth- and sixth-grade girls Saturday. Parents cheered in the Estacada High School gym as the referees blew the opening whistle.
Before long, though, things got out of hand.
One referee, Houston Webb, a local high school player, ejected the Molalla coach, Jeffery Scott Larsen, after the coach continued to berate him over his calls.
But Larsen, police say, refused to leave and accosted Webb after the game. Parents rushed the floor, some shoving followed, and players left in tears. Then the police showed up.
On Sunday, after further investigation, the Clackamas County Sheriff's Office arrested Larsen, 34, and cited him with criminal trespassing in the gym after the referee had tossed him out of the game. State law says it's a Class C misdemeanor if an ejected coach refuses to leave the scene of a sports event.
By John Nash
February 15th, 2008
Unless your shelling out thousands of dollars to a highly-qualified, big-city plastic surgeon, change oftentimes does not happen overnight.
In the sport-scape that surrounds the humble little burg you call home, the Wilton Basketball Association is proof of that.
Wilton, after all, is football country. Wilton is a lacrosse town. Wilton is a place where soccer can thrive.
But basketball? Putting a competitively planned youth basketball program would be akin to planting a cactus in a rain forest. It's like matching up Jim Carrey and Meryl Streep to headline a movie. It's like Stephen King writing a Harlequin Romance.
On the surface, it just didn't seem right.
By Staff Sgt. Stacy D. Foster
50th Space Wing Public Affairs
February 12th, 2008
2/12/2008 - PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Colo. -- As Les Stewart watches the children in his youth basketball program, he wonders if the next big basketball star is right before his eyes. It's possible, he thought.
"To watch these kids grow and get better is an amazing thing," he said.
Mr. Stewart has been involved with the Peterson Air Force Base Youth Center program for the past five years and believes it is the best in the Air Force. The program was awarded the Excellence in Youth Sports Award in 2005 by the National Alliance for Youth Sports.
The year-round program includes many different sports, camps, and special events. Youth basketball began Feb. 2 and lasts through March.
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