Sport-Blog.com

As a former teacher and coach, I have always been a proponent of the lessons that sports can teach youngsters. Because of that view, I continue to pay very close attention to youth sports.

In recent years there have been a number of times when I have read very positive articles about amateur sports and the wonderful coaches who are able to help youngsters learn to appreciate the opportunity structured competition can provide. The youth sports scene is fortunate to have many adults who generously volunteer their time to help children experience the wonder of sports. These coaches fully understand the purpose of athletics. They teach the ideals of competition, the notion of giving one's best effort, but are then able to keep winning and losing in perspective.

At other times I find myself recoiling at a tale that I hear. Such was the recent case of a T-ball coach in North Union Township, approximately 40 miles southeast of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

If you believe in the good of sport and the importance of the aforementioned lessons, this story is one that will make the hair on the back of your neck stand up. It seems a coach by the name of Mark Downs Jr. wanted to prevent a particular player from participating in a T-ball game. T-ball is of course a beginners' form of baseball that is usually open to very young players, generally around eight years of age.

In order to prevent a specific player from participating, the coach allegedly paid one of his players $25 to hurt the targeted individual. People allege that the targeted boy was in fact hit in the head and in the groin with thrown baseballs just before a key game. The injuries the youngster sustained prevented him from being able to play that day.

As sad as that sounds, the story actually grows worse when some additional details are revealed. You see the targeted player was not a key member of the opposing team. The selected player was instead a teammate, an eight-year-old mentally disabled youngster who actually played for Downs' team.

This disappointing case of sports gone awry has now become a police matter. Witnesses have told police that Downs didn't want the boy to play in the game because of his disability. T-ball league rules require every player to participate in at least three innings of every game, so without the injury the coach would have had to play the disabled boy in the game.

In trying to explain this to others, a member of the Pennsylvania state police issued the following statement. "The coach was very competitive," state police Trooper Thomas B. Broadwater reportedly said. "He wanted to win."

Though Downs alleged actions clearly crossed the lines of sportsmanship, police have taken the matter even further. Downs was arrested and arraigned last week, charged with criminal solicitation to commit aggravated assault as well as with the corruption of minors.

In researching items further, Eric Forsythe, the president of the R.W. Clark Youth Baseball League and the T-ball supervisor stated that Downs also had two daughters on the T-ball team. It is common for T-ball teams to consist of both girls and boys but it was not clear whether or not Downs' own childrenbenefitedd from the disabled player's inability to participate.

This ugly story drew national headlines and once again caused many parents to question their child's involvement in youth sports. It also brought great suspicion upon the many adults who give their time willingly to work with youngsters during organized play.

As League president, Forsythe has taken a strong stand. Says the head of the league, if Downs is actually convicted of a crime, he will not be permitted to coach in the league next year.

Unfortunately, that statement was just not strong enough for those people who see the importance of coaches being role models for their players. Those people, like me, believe that if the allegations against Downs are true, then the league should remove him from coaching whether or not he is convicted of a crime.

There simply is no place in youth sports for such coaches. They do nothing but tarnish the fine work of all the other volunteers who work tirelessly on behalf of children.