Law & Policy: Sportsmanship

by Michael Popke May 2013

The madness of March basketball might have faded until 2014, but a series of stall-ball incidents during high school hoops tournaments earlier this year provoked a different kind of madness.

by Michael Popke — AB Managing Editor April 2013

Police in two states have been investigating reports of a football coach from Thunder Mountain High School in Juneau, Alaska, knocking unconscious a then-incoming freshman player while boxing at a team camp last July. The incident, which was captured on video, occurred in Gold Beach, Ore., where the team attends a camp every summer. Law enforcement officials in that city recently took over the case.

by Michael Popke — AB Managing Editor April 2013

Two days after Rutgers University men's basketball coach Mike Rice was fired for shoving, grabbing and hurling balls and anti-gay slurs at players, athletic director Tim Pernetti has resigned, according to Associated Press reports.

by Michael Popke — AB Managing Editor February 2013

The sentencing this week of a youth hockey coach to 15 days in jail for tripping a 13-year-old player from the opposing team in the handshake line last June reminded me of just how far we, as a sporting society, still have to go. The lawyer for Martin Tremblay, whose action in a British Columbia ice rink was caught on video, argued that the coach was off his anti-depressants at the time. But the judge didn't care and called Tremblay's behavior a "cowardly sucker punch." Hooray for Canada's judicial system!

by Andrew Cohen February 2013

The very-active NIRSA Community forum - if you don't know, that's the place where college recreation professionals post job offerings and seek advice on facilities, management and equipment issues - tackles some thorny questions. So when a post appeared Monday headed "Need opinions on a tough situation," I donned my thinking cap and girded myself for something…well, tough.

by Michael Popke — AB Managing Editor February 2013

When John Callahan began shouting at referee Dennis Buchman during a district wrestling tournament Saturday night at Liberty High School in Bethlehem, Pa., the 22-year veteran official wasted no time ejecting him. But what makes this story worthy of national news is the fact that Callahan - the father of a wrestler from nearby Freedom High School - also is Bethlehem's mayor and a candidate for Northampton County executive.

by Michael Popke — AB Managing Editor January 2013

Chicago Public Schools has suspended two high school head basketball coaches for demonstrating unprofessional conduct in the wake of a post-game fight last week that ended with a student's murder outside the gymnasium. Robert Smith of Simeon Career Academy and Nick Irvin of Morgan Park High School will sit out four games each for behavior that CPS CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett said "shocked and appalled" her. (The terms of the suspension require the coaches to attend the games in a non-coaching capacity.)

by Emily Attwood October 2012

An 18-month investigation of a youth football gambling operation in South Florida culminated in the arrest of nine men, all coaches and assistants from the league. "Operation Dirty Play," as the investigation was called, started with journalists from ESPN who videotaped parents exchanging money in the stands. According to investigators, larger sums of money were exchanged off the field, and as much as $100,000 was wagered on a youth football championship.

by Michael Popke — AB Managing Editor October 2012

When I played freshman basketball at a Catholic high school in Wisconsin back in the 1980s, one of my teammates earned the nickname "Plop" because of the sound his flat feet made when we ran laps around the gym. I remember running laps around that gym with "Plop" and the rest of my teammates a lot, often as punishment for forgotten indiscretions; in fact, the running is what sticks out most about that season - which was my last playing organized hoops.

by Paul Steinbach April 2012

Derek Boogaard's brain is handled with care these days. It resides with dozens of others at Boston University, donated to the Sports Legacy Institute so that it might be studied for signs of long-term damage.