Ethics Newsline®

Last week, Rushworth Kidder’s column asked whether it is ever justified for a coach to touch a player in a confrontational or violent way. The question elicited as much — or perhaps more — mail than we’ve ever had in response to an opinion piece.

Most of you (about two-thirds) said no.

Many of your no responses were absolute in tone. “Other than the case of jumping in to stop a fight among players, I can’t see a time when it would be ethical,” writes one reader.

Another, a coach from Maine, rules out rough language as well as physical contact. “In my opinion, it is never acceptable to use any level of profanity in the environment of a team sport. It is also never acceptable to use physical touch as a method of coaching a team.” She writes that Maine state regulations prohibit contact and argues that such regulation should be imposed everywhere.

“No touching,” asserts a subscriber from Houston. “It may have been fine at one time, but that was then and this is now. If we weren’t evolving and leaving behind traditional ways of doing things that are now deemed unacceptable, all schools would still allow teachers to paddle students. That practice has been outlawed almost everywhere now because we have learned that violence only breeds more violence and teaches nothing about self-restraint and self-control.”

A reader who coaches youth baseball notes that a coach is also, figuratively and sometimes literally, a parent, teacher, and boss, and needs to realize that “there are better ways” to stop inappropriate behavior.

Another, who endured abusive behavior from a coach as a youth — for which the coach eventually apologized — offers this opinion: “I sometimes think that coaches have little understanding of the places that they hold in the lives of some of the young people for whom they are responsible. In other words, the branch you bend in a certain way in its youth may carry that bend for the rest of their lives.”

Several readers say they believe problems similar to those described in last week’s opinion piece are inescapable byproducts of a sport that conditions young people to, in the words of the column, “smash each other.” A former rugby player from Britain writes that cultural norms in U.S. football precipitate such incidents. “In the form of rugby, the emphasis is on self-restraint (the stiff upper lip of legend). To be injured or hurt or insulted is not an excuse for retaliation. It is an opportunity for an exercise of manliness. The form of American football that ‘teaches smashing’ must, by definition, teach violence.”

While not necessarily endorsing all physical action by coaches, some readers note that the dilemma of whether to manhandle a player carries considerable moral nuance.

One reader, a former professional athlete, admits that touching a player is not always the best solution but notes that we accept — and often endorse — both the seemingly ruthless behavior from lawyers acting as their clients’ advocates as well as the apparent insensitivity to suffering by doctors who must sometimes inure themselves to the situation in order to function. The problem, he maintains, comes when such attributes are applied inappropriately in different contexts.

Physical contact in a sport involving physical contact is “a part of nature,” writes another reader, who maintains that governing bodies of individual sports should establish reasonable guidelines.

A reader from Australia argues that physical contact can be appropriate and necessary, drawing on the parallel between sports and physical discipline of children. “It is clearly better to use rational argument to discipline children. But when your three-year-old is about to put a screwdriver in the power outlet, it is not time for a lecture on the dangers of electricity. Physical intervention is called for. The lecture must follow when everyone has calmed down. Physical contact for both positive and negative reinforcement is hugely powerful. It should be used sparingly, but it has its place.”